


The King is Gone

by missberrycake, singinginmay



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Coming Out, Download Available, English Accent, Everybody Lives, Friendship, Happy Ending, M/M, No Smut, Novel, POV Multiple, POV Richie Tozier, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 5-6 Hours, Podfic Length: 6-7 Hours, Post-Canon Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, The Losers Club, The Turtle CAN Help Us (IT), Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, british accent, just vibing in the 90's man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 52,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missberrycake/pseuds/missberrycake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/singinginmay/pseuds/singinginmay
Summary: Derry isn’t an ordinary town. Richie Tozier knows this; he is a Loser after all. Why, then, is he still surprised when the town doesn’t let them go without a fight?Together with the surviving members of the Lucky Seven, Richie finds himself flung back into the summer of nineteen ninety-three. Stuck in their own past, they team up with the reluctant and suspicious teenage Losers to try and find a way home.Perhaps, if they can just work out what the hell the giant floating turtle in the sky is telling them, they can get out of this in one piece.All of them.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 63
Kudos: 147





	1. The Shadow After

**Author's Note:**

> Another time travel story? _How surprising!_
> 
> In my defence, this time it’s got a killer clown in. Or. You know. At least mentions one.
> 
> Fair warning, I have no recollection of what’s film canon, mini-series canon, book canon, or not canon at all with ‘IT’ anymore. Maybe that has something to do with me watching the movies, reading the novel, inhaling all the fanfiction I could get my hands on, and casting a dubious eye over the mini-series, all simultaneously, we’ll never know. Long story short, I no longer know what goes where, but an effort was made. Seriously. I tried very hard. 
> 
> I have also recorded a podfic for this story under my [singinginmay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singinginmay) pseudonym. If you haven’t listened to a podfic before, I would urge you to give it a chance instead of reading - it’s a whole different thing. You might love it! I know I do.
> 
> Thank you to [a_very_confused_fan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_very_confused_fan) for beta’ing this for me.

****

**Whole Podfic Folder** \- Google MP3 Download

‘[The King is Gone [Podfic]](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_PxvqTc4eOPpkWCYaKQv1NjV4uUR-woH?usp=sharing)’ (389.0MB) (Length: 6:02:23)

* * *

_“I used to be seventeen_

_Now you’re just like me.”_

\- Sharon Van Etten,

‘Seventeen’

* * *

_"We lie best when we lie to ourselves."_

\- Stephen King,

‘IT'

* * *

♜

The Town House walls closed in around him. It was a quiet panic that flooded through Richie’s body now, in the hours after they all returned from the quarry; the kind of panic that reminded him of the unrelenting energy that had filled him as a kid. 

He shivered. 

Memories of his childhood were not what he needed more of right now. 

The others were downstairs at the bar. Bill had suggested they meet there after getting properly cleaned and rested and, while at the time Richie had felt the burning need to be close to them, had balked at the very suggestion of returning to his room by himself, now that he was here - 

Eddie had never been in this room, not as far as Richie knew. Once Richie had stumbled out of the shower, though, and perched on the end of the twin bed nearest him, it felt suddenly like all of Eddie was in there with him; that this was where he existed, would _always_ exist now. In this small, rundown hotel room. 

For those few moments the walls crashed closer and Richie’s chest tightened and all the sound vanished from the world and he thought, _shit_ , what if they were back in the sewers still? What if Richie was still in the deadlights? What if - What if Eddie were still alive?

Even as he thought the words, the cloud lifted. Beverly’s laughter filtered up the stairs, cut short, too loud and abrupt in the soft, sleepy quiet of the day.

Richie kind of felt like he’d never laugh again. A stupid thought, really, of course he would. He could almost hear the, ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ from the others in response, and _yet -_

They’d all laughed so easily at the quarry. Could it ever be that easy? 

Richie groaned, dragging his hands through his mostly dry hair. Enough melodrama. _Enough._ It didn’t suit him, it was boring, it was self-indulgent, it was - Well, fuck, he didn’t know, but he was done with it. 

Pulling on the comfiest clothes he could find in the bottom of his duffle, he plodded down the stairs, slow enough to make out the murmur of conversation. 

“... and when Mike roped us into clearing out the hencoop, or whatever the hell it was,” Ben was saying, voice wet and breathy like he’d been chuckling for too long without stopping for air, “and him and Stan practically went to war with the chickens?”

Eddie. They were talking about Eddie. About _Stan_. Richie paused beyond the doorway. What was worse? Listening to others talk about him, or attempting (and most definitely failing, at least without bursting into tears) to talk about him himself?

“Oh, my God,” Bill crowed. Richie could imagine his expression, that scrunched up grin that hadn’t changed at all since he was a kid. “Didn’t he bring a pair of guh-goggles?”

“Yeah, the two of them got together before and planned it.”

That’s right, Richie had called him ‘Professor Bug’ all morning. Ostensibly because he hadn’t been able to decide whether Eddie looked more like a high school chemistry teacher, or a praying mantis, but _really_ because he’d liked the way Eddie scowled at him with increasing intensity whenever he’d said it.

There was a lull in the conversation; heavy breaths and the clinking of glasses. 

“Will Richie be okay, though?”

It was Bev who asked. Of course it was. 

“He will,” Bill croaked, with a level of confidence that, at any other time, Richie might find complimentary. “He’s tough.”

“Yeah, but,” Bev sighed. “They were always so close.”

“Hey.”

Richie startled, hands raised in fists before he really knew what he was doing. With the door of the Town House swinging shut behind him, Mike raised his own palms in response; an apology, an understanding.

“Fuck, dude.”

“Sorry,” Mike shrugged. 

The other man looked intensely like he had more to say. Thankfully, while Richie floundered with a grimace on his face, Bev muttered, “Is that the others?” She raised her voice. “Is that you guys? Come on in, Bill’s drinking all the spirits, there won’t be any left!”

His quietness throughout the evening didn’t go unnoticed but wasn’t commented on, and Richie felt a wave of gratitude wash through him. He was tired; a kind of life-tired that he’d never encountered before. Flirted with, maybe, but always managed to bat away with now-envied ease. 

“My flight’s at three tomorrow,” Bill said, eventually, when all their glasses were home to mere dregs. 

“Tomorrow?” Richie spluttered, voice rough. The others blinked at him. 

“No reason to hang around,” Bill replied. “B-besides, I have a duh-director to suck up to.”

“And a wife,” Bev reminded him.

“I’ve already started that one,” Bill grinned, sheepishly, tapping his pocket. There was a shuffling under the table and Richie figured that Bill had nudged Mike’s foot. “Sorry I can’t stay and help you p-puh-pack, Mikey.”

Bev moaned around her final mouthful of wine. “Yes, sorry, Mike. I mentioned the word ‘divorce’ to my lawyer and she already has a whole stack of papers for me to go through. Ben’s gonna drive, help me pack up.”

Well, it looked like discussions had been had without him. It was only fair, Richie supposed. If Eddie - Eddie and - They would ... well. This town was hell, they didn’t want to stay. Shit, Richie didn’t _want_ to stay. But - But, _Eddie_ , still underneath Niebolt somewhere, covered in blood and dirt and God knows what else. How could they leave him all alone? They just left him _all alone._

“Rich?” Ben asked, looking at him with soft eyes. Richie flicked his gaze between him and Bev. It was only fair.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll help you, don’t worry about it.”

“Really?” Mike eyed him warily. “You’re not ‘getting the hell out of dodge’?”

“I’ve always got time for my pals,” he said, plastering a grin on his face, arms outstretched.

“Don’t you have a show next week?” Bill asked, drily.

Richie clicked his tongue. “ _Always leave ‘em wanting more, Big Bill_ ,” he said, in his best transatlantic come Jimmy Stewart. “ _That’s the trick_.”

He winked and Bill snorted. “I’ll buh-bear that in mind.”

“Do. Seriously. Next book, just end it a chapter early, do us all a favour.”

And so, one by one, they all left. Bill the next day, red eyes wet and outlined in purple, the day after, Bev and Ben waved them off while failing to hide their anticipation to be on the road. Then, after only a week, Mike’s borrowed space above the library was packed and cleared and ready for the next, with Mike himself hovering on the curb next to his truck, his final ever pile of Derry mail clenched in his hands. Richie couldn’t help but be reminded of a baby bird leaving the nest for the first time, all his worldly possession tucked neatly in the back without any great fanfare. 

“Let me know when you leave,” Mike said to him, his deep voice soothing in the cool morning. 

Richie nodded, his hands stuffed in his pockets. 

“ _Today,_ ” Mike insisted, fixing Richie with a penetrating look. “There’s nothing for you here, Richie. Don’t hang around, okay? I’ve done enough of that for all of us.”

Richie winced. “I promise, man. There’s just one thing I gotta do, then I’m out. I just needed -” He shrugged, shoving his glasses further up his nose, not having a clue what the hell he needed at all.

“A bit of space,” Mike supplied. 

“Something like that. Whatever, look, happy travels, dude,” Richie said with a smile, clapping Mike’s back as he pulled him in for a hug. “Say hello to the ‘gators for me.”

Mike regarded him for a moment, smiled, and then nodded. “I’ll see you soon, Trashmouth.”

“That’s right, Homeschool. Like herpes, can’t get rid of me.”

Mike chuckled, shook his head, and pulled away. Richie stood, breathing in the fumes until his lungs hit fresh air, and Mike’s truck turned the corner, out of Derry for good. 

There was nothing left for him here, now. No reason to stay. 

~

The sun had risen fully by the time Richie stopped his car at the side of the road. The Kissing Bridge was empty and Richie found himself terrified for a second at the potential for somebody else to have been there, one that he hadn’t even considered. 

His fingers trembled a little on the door handle and a nervous chuckle escaped his lips. _Get a grip, Richie._ The clown is dead, and it’s not like Eddie’s going to come back and catch you. Hell, it’s not like _anyone_ is going to come back and catch you. Even if they did, it’s not such a big secret, right? You could tell them, they would be okay. You could even - 

Could even _what_? Come out to the entire fucking world? ‘Hey, folks, you might remember me as that guy who made jokes about fucking women that your deadbeat brother thought were the pinnacle of comedy, turns out I was a massive flamer the entire fucking time, thank you and goodnight, no refunds.’

His agent would have a Goddamn aneurysm and, _fuck,_ he could just picture the self-satisfied, click-bait headlines now. It’d be the internet’s wet fucking dream.

But then he remembered the way Mike had looked at him this morning, the way Bev had smiled, how the others had all held him so tightly when he’d lost it at the quarry. 

It wasn’t that he thought they would reject him, he knew they wouldn’t - he was a Loser and Losers stuck together - but it was everything else that had him freezing up. The questions, the assumptions, the _implications_. 

Maybe, just maybe, Richie didn’t fancy the people who knew him best in the world figuring out that he’d let the only person he’d ever loved die alone in the dark without ever telling them how he felt. 

Because they’d work it out. It could only ever be Eddie. And they’d be so nice about it, too, so sympathetic and Richie didn’t have the _right_. He and Eddie were never - They’d hadn’t - They weren’t -

Yeah, no. No fucking way, José. Not just yet. Maybe - Maybe in a few months, when he’d had a chance to process. 

_That’s it, Richie, you kick that can down the road._

A fuck-off gigantic Jeep sped along on Richie’s left side then and shook the bones of his sports car. He glared at it as it vanished down the track and let himself imagine, just for a moment, that it could be Eddie, finally leaving Derry, alive and whole and well. 

He let out a breath and hauled himself out into the sunshine. 

The bridge was just as he remembered, just as abandoned, just as unkempt. Richie might have made a comment about how it seemed to be an irrepressible urge of human nature to take something ordinary and fill it with love, but then, he was just a second rate comedian, what did he know?

Above him the sun formed a mosaic through the scattering of leaves, the rush of the Kenduskeag roared in the distance, and the birds sang into the blue sky. 

What was that? Richie only really knew the song of the wood thrush, knowledge that was ingrained in his mind only through unrelenting exposure. God, the number of times they’d be walking through the Barrens and Stan would stop and say, ‘Listen, a thrush’. Geez, what a fucking loser that kid had been. Richie missed him. Stan would have known what Richie should do next, he’d have helped him, even when Richie invariably told him not to.

He followed the grain of the wooden fence with his eyes, down to the place that he’d so carefully chosen. After staring at that spot on the bridge for a long few seconds, he chickened out and turned to lean casually on the hood of the car, fishing his phone from his pocket. 

The Losers Group Chat was still disgustingly sparse. Yeah, that was another fucking thing to worry about, wasn’t it? Mike hadn’t been messing around when he had made him promise to text him when he left. 

Even though they’d all sworn, all _vowed_ that they’d keep in contact this time, neither Bill, Ben, or Bev had responded to Mike or Richie’s messages over the past week. At first Richie had written it off as Bill getting caught up in his LA meltdown again, but Ben and Bev as well? He knew Mike had avoided talking about it, but they were both thinking the same thing. Maybe they’d forgotten again. 

In some bizarre form of sadomasochism, Richie scrolled right past the dozens of missed calls and messages from his agency and brought up the chat once more. 

**The Losers Club**

**Señor Trashmouth**

Just checked out and the owner wants to know where all the Bourbon went. I gave her Bill’s number ;)

11:43am

Maybe this time someone would respond.

Whatever.

Okay, well, fuck. He might as well get this fucking over with.

He crossed the road in two long strides and crouched down in front of the ‘R + E’ he’d carved all those years ago. What would Eddie have said, if he’d known? He was married, for God’s sake. Richie hadn’t asked if he was happy with his wife, couldn’t handle the answer if it had been yes, but now - Oh, how he wished he’d just been brave, how he longed for a second chance, how he dreamed of it. 

The wood beneath his fingertips was soft and worn where he traced the grooves of the ‘E’ so, so slowly. If he told the others about when he’d carved his and Eddie’s initials in this wood for the whole of Derry to see, one of them would probably say how brave it was. It was the kind of thing they told each other. _You’re braver than you think_. But, the truth was, Richie had done it because he was scared. 

He’d wanted to be sure of himself and true and _brave_ back then, just as he wanted it now so much that he almost choked on it. Instead, though, he’d hightailed it here and scratched out these letters while terrified someone would walk by because he was a coward. 

The declaration was here because he sure as hell hadn’t had any plans to tell anyone about it. That wasn’t the worst, though. The worst, the idea that even thirteen-year-old Richie couldn’t stomach, couldn’t _bear_ , was that his love for Eddie would never see the light of day. 

It would never pass his lips, he’d known that back then, but he was too chicken shit to follow through and push it down entirely. This carving was his secret, his release, his pressure valve.

And here he was again. 

Hiding. Scared. Alone.

The fence was sun-warmed now and the letters had faded in the past twenty-seven years. Richie huffed a faint laugh. _It’s not the only thing_. Muscles ached in Richie’s body that he hadn’t felt in years, his joints clicked when he moved and, holy hell, he needed a coffee. 

Not yet, though. He still had that one thing to do. 

Rummaging around in his trunk, he pulled a penknife from the side pocket of his duffle and got to work. 

By the time he was done the engraving looked almost new again. He blinked his eyes clear. If only - But, no. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to help at all. 

Standing up straight, he took several deep breaths. It was time to leave. Mike was right, there was no point hanging around in this dead-end place. He’d go back to LA and - and - and figure out his shit, he supposed. 

He’d probably been cancelled, or whatever the kids called it nowadays. At least he wouldn’t have a deadline.

Casting a glance back down at his phone, fingers hovering over the ignition, his lips thinned. There was no response to his message; the others hadn’t even read it. 

Richie tried to pretend like it didn’t sting.

♜

The quarry was dark when Richie’s head broke the surface of the water. It was stupid, he thought dimly, to swim like this at night. His mother would have surely had some choice words for him if she’d ever found him doing this as a kid. Mind you, he did so much questionable shit when he was young - running headlong into the sewers to kill a murderous psycho clown from outer space, for example - that, really, swimming in the dark was the least of Maggie Tozier’s problems. 

Rolling onto his back, he floated gently in the water. Above him the stars were bright and glistening against the deep blue of night. It was beautiful. Richie had never seen the stars like that above Derry. Or, anywhere else, in fact. The more Richie looked, the more they twinkled, almost pulsing in the infinite space above him. 

So far away. He was so small here, miles and miles of sky above him, the depths of the lake below him. 

Anything could be lurking out there. 

The thought caught him off guard, and he stopped floating to head to dry land when - Shit. Where was the land? 

Around him the landscape morphed. Swayed and swelled and tilted on its axis. Richie was floating. The rocks were gone, the stars had vanished, replaced with just darkness. 

With no light to orientate himself by, Richie felt a slow, almost drunken dizziness consume him. He tried to breathe, tried to calm himself, but water spilled into his mouth, up the back of his throat and he was drowning, he was going to _drown_ \- 

_RICHIE._

Richie spluttered, head snapping from side to side as he squinted into the pitch black. Where’d the sound even come from? It had felt like it was right next to him, right by his ear, in his head, even. 

But there was nobody else here, Richie was entirely alone. 

_Fuck._ How had Richie even gotten here? Why the hell _would_ he come here? He’d gone back to the Town House, hadn’t he? Shit, or maybe he’d drunk a hell of a lot more than he’d thought before succumbing to sleep that night. That would certainly explain the stomach-churning vertigo.

 _RICHIE TOZIER_ , the voice said. 

It was then that something huge, something unfathomable passed beneath him. Richie couldn’t see it, not really, couldn’t feel it, but he knew. A shiver ran up his spine, along with the sudden undeniable knowledge that he was tiny, and alone, and entirely unable to hide from the vastness of the universe around him. 

Horrifically, the realisation made Richie want to cry.

The voice - was it a voice? - came again, but Richie couldn’t understand what it was saying. Like a word on the tip of your tongue, but just out of reach. 

The creature, the _being_ , the - _the thing_ was still passing beneath him in the water, endless and unseeable. 

What was it?

From the back of his mind, a distant memory appeared, distorted and faded from the expanse of time. Not all of them, they weren’t quite the Lucky Seven yet, but some of them, at the quarry, splashing in the water. Something swimming beneath their feet. A turtle, Big Bill had said. 

A turtle. 

The stars turned back on, the gentle splash of the water against the rocks, the chirping of crickets, all returned. Richie gasped, legs kicking to keep himself afloat, and - 

He blinked his eyes open, the damp-stained ceiling of the Town House swimming into view.

What the _fuck_?

It was morning, if the light coursing through the thin curtains was anything to go by. Richie took several deep breaths. That was something else. He’d never had a dream quite that … intense before.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered to himself, kicking back the covers. 

It was probably just Derry, just being here too long, making his mind go crazy.

Two cups of shitty hotel coffee and a lukewarm shower later and Richie had almost forgotten all about it, however. He had other fish to fry. 

He’d lied to Bill and Mike about checking out of the Town House yesterday - Bill intentionally, Mike less so. Not that either had been bothered at all, Richie thought wryly, as he refreshed the group chat to precisely zero new messages. Not even from Mike. He steadfastly ignored the growing black hole in his chest at that idea. _Even Mike._

But, no, really, he was definitely leaving today. He couldn’t take any more of this Goddamn coffee for a start. 

The problem, though, came in the form of the two industrial-sized suitcases loitering incongruously in the corner of his room. 

Really, Richie mused, what the hell had Eddie thought was going to happen here? Mind you, he’d probably been more prepared than Richie, with his small pile of spare shirts, one spare pair of trousers, underwear and lone toothbrush. It may be a scientific impossibility for Richie to get these cases into his sports car, but there was no way in hell that he was leaving them here. 

He continued to muse on the matter for several long minutes, idly fiddling with the zipper of one of the cases. 

With a soft grunt to himself, he pulled it down and flipped the lid open in one smooth movement, as if the faster he did it, the less it would hurt. He needn’t have worried. All he was welcomed with was a tidy selection of baby blue packing cubes.

“Oh, Eds,” he murmured, lifting one of the cubes with unnecessary reverence. “Why in the hell did I love you so much, you fucking nerd.” 

It wasn’t really a question, or, it was one Richie knew the answer to well enough, had known it since he was barely thirteen years old. Saying it out loud, though, had his heart pounding against his chest, and Richie found his neck heating up. _You fool, Richie. You selfish, weak-hearted fool._

Still, fool as he was, he opened up the soft case and smiled stupidly at the neatly folded stack of shirts he found within. Who had chosen these, he wondered; Eddie, or his wife? He liked to think that this was pure Eddie, all those pale colours and soft fabrics. Eddie hadn’t revealed much about Myra Kaspbrak, but there was enough there for Richie to form a not so favourable image of her in his mind’s eye. His gaze flicked up to the pharmacy of medication stored safely in the net pocket within the case’s lid. Had Eddie been in such a rush that he’d just poured everything he’d thought he might need in? Or is this how he travelled light? 

Richie tried to picture him in his New York apartment, or house in the suburbs, _fuck,_ he didn’t know. He knew hardly anything about Eddie’s new life. 

And it shouldn’t have been that way, Eddie shouldn’t have still been clutching at his inhaler, shouldn’t have been living a life encased in fear from the world around him, shouldn’t have been without the Losers for so, so long. 

_Shouldn’t have married Myra_ , his mind supplied, _I should have been with him. It should have been me_. 

What would it have been like if they hadn’t forgotten? 

_Stop it, just stop it, Richie._ It was no good thinking like this. He had a half-arsed plan in his head to make it up to his agent and smooth it over with the general public - something about the death of a close friend, that was pretty much the truth - that he was intending to stick to. The best he could do was live in the present, all that mindfulness shtick that everyone loved back in LA. 

_Shit_ , his mind whirred again. The death of _two_ close friends. He hadn’t factored Eddie into that excuse. Eddie had still been alive when he’d come up with it. 

Richie sat back on his heels, pressing his palms into his eye sockets. He wasn’t going to cry again, he was so Goddamn sick of crying. Instead, he sucked in a long breath and shoved the packing cube back into the case. Time to get out of this hell hole.

~

Thankfully, Richie had never let a scientific fact stop him, and he managed to shove Eddie’s suitcases against the backseats of his car at some alarming angles. He hoped he didn’t have to break too suddenly at any point. 

Eddie’s voice echoed in the back of his mind, ‘You know, ninety percent of traffic accidents are caused by human error,’ but, as in life, Richie actively ignored it.

He stopped at a cafe on the edge of town - some tiny hole in the wall that was probably charming and homely thirty years ago, not that Richie remembered it, but was now outdated and tacky. The coffee was weak and grey-looking. The woman behind the counter looked to be around Richie’s age, or younger, maybe; Richie was rather terrible at judging age. Where had she been in the summer of 1989? Was she in Derry back then? She would have been a kid. Maybe they’d saved her. They must have saved so many kids, indirectly. Richie barely thought about it that way. It hadn’t particularly felt that way back then. 

With a heavy sigh, he swallowed the last cold dregs of his murky water and left. 

It was mid-morning by the time Richie eventually got on the road. He sailed past the residential roads, the houses becoming less and less familiar the further he got. People were going about their business in the clear sunshine, walking the streets with earbuds in, gesticulating wildly while talking on the Bluetooth in their cars, kids crowded around each other in their front yards, laughing raucously at something on their phones. 

Normal life. Richie never really got the hang of it. 

He fiddled with the radio and managed to tune into some local station, in the middle of a show claiming to have all the hits from yesteryear. Richie grimaced when he heard the opening chords of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ begin to play. 

Right, how could he forget? He was _old_. Out of it. Ancient history.

His fingers itched to message the others and share in his pain, but he’d punished himself enough with that already. 

Instead, he turned the volume up and hummed along, tapping out the beat against the wheel. He was leaving Derry, he should be happy. 

It was as Richie was trying to remember the right lyrics that it happened. He’d ended up on a less familiar road out of the town limits - thanks GPS! Quickest route, indeed - when the large sign approached on the side of the road.

_Now Leaving_

DERRY

MAINE

Population: 19,819

_We’ll miss you!_

“Einstein, James Dean,” Richie sang under his breath, keeping his eyes on the sign. “Space Monkey - Ah, fuck. _Davy Crockett_ , Peter Pan, Edsel is a no-go …”

As the sign came level with his wing mirrors, a loud bang reverberated through the car, shaking Richie right down to his bones. A flash of light burst in the back of his eyes and he swore, clenching them shut. It didn’t stop the white-hot heat. He could feel the steering wheel spinning madly beneath his hands and his body was shoved into the side of the door as he lost control entirely. 

Almost as if in slow motion, the car rolled over, flinging Richie about in his seat, his seat belt digging into him painfully. The sound of glass crunching and metal creaking screamed in his ears and Richie opened his eyes only briefly, but was not met by the blur of a cracked windscreen, or the grey-green spin of the road and the trees, or even the red of blood as it dripped down over his eyebrows - because sure, _surely_ , he wasn’t walking out of this one - but instead he came face to face with a void. Dark and empty and infinitesimally large. A turtle floated through the space in front of him, small and green, until - _Oh._ The creature turned, slowly, like it couldn’t move any faster, and Richie realised it wasn’t small at all. It was mammoth; bigger than anything Richie had ever - Bigger than anyone had ever - Bigger than ... than _anything._

Richie came too to the smell of something wet and earthy. He wrinkled his nose, pushing his glasses further up his face. 

Shit. 

His car was still in one piece, miraculously, and had ended up back upright. Remarkably, it didn’t look in too bad a condition. Eddie’s suitcases remained firmly lodged against the backseats. Steam billowed from under the hood and Richie took a second to slump in his seat before he thought to check himself. 

As he patted himself down - all his blood and bones had remained inside his body, _thank God_ \- the radio crackled and buzzed, the signal dropping in and out before it settled once more. 

_“No we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.”_

The song faded out and Richie frowned as he listened to the two DJs, who he was at least sixty percent certain had been called Steve and Megan before the song started. 

_“And that was Billy Joel, ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’. That’s a good one, isn’t it, Jim?”_

_“Oh, a good one, Dick, a real corker. A workout for the memory, too, I’ll tell ya.”_

_“That it is. And he’s got a new release coming out, as well. Ahead of the debut of his album ‘The River of Dreams’ later this summer, we’ve got a sneak peek of the title single for you lucky listeners.”_

_“I, for one, can’t wait, Dick, I have to say.”_

_“We’ll be playing that within the hour. Right now though, here’s Cindy with the news.”_

_“Thanks, Dick. Headline news today, President Clinton is expected to make an announcement at the White House regarding his landmark policy ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, for …”_

Richie turned it off and stared out of the windscreen. Weird. That was … _weird._

Outside the trees on either side of the road swayed in the breeze. Clouds rolled in overhead, dampening the heat of the sun. Hadn’t it been clear skies? 

It was the sign, though, that really did it. Instead of the green shimmering metal mounted on to hefty, industrial poles, Richie turned to see the back of a smaller wooden panel, burgundy paint peeling off until it was barely legible. One thing Richie could make out was the thin white numbers that made up the population. One-six-four-three-two.

He leaned over and grabbed his phone from the cubby hole in the dashboard and lowered his eyes. The last four messages in the group chat were still from him, and he still had three new unread messages from his agent. But - the time and date had gone haywire, had reverted back to three minutes past midnight on January first. In the corner, in tiny text, the words ‘NO SIGNAL’ jumped out at him. 

_Still, nothing to panic about, Richie. There’s probably a perfectly logical reason for it all._ And, sure, of course there was, because, phones broke all the time, right? It was probably some upgrade gone wrong, or some phone tower nearby had tripped out, or, or something. And, _probably_ , the radio had just been whacked over a few stations by the crash, and - What? Landed on some bizarre history skit? Yeah. It was probably just a bit. 

And the sign? Well. Richie had just been in a car crash, he’d probably just hit his head. 

Richie shifted in his seat. But why the hell had he crashed in the first place? What the hell had that all been?

He sat up straighter in his seat when a fire-engine red Chevy Lumina rocketed past him. His dad used to drive one of those. Geez, that was the car he’d first learnt to drive in. It looked new, though, and it had an ‘AB’ licence plate. Richie hadn’t seen one of those since … since … since the fucking nineties. 

Nodding to himself, Richie attempted not to panic. People drove old cars. People did odd things. He’d just suffered a blow to the head, he needed to remain calm. 

Right. 

_A perfectly logical explanation._

Sure. Perfectly logical things happened all the time in Derry, didn’t they? And he was the Queen of Sheba. What the fuck?

♖

Mike Hanlon gripped his steering wheel tightly. This was it; the first day of the rest of his life, what he’d been waiting for and longing for for twenty-seven years. He’d dreamed of this, back in his self-imposed prison cell above the library. 

They’d killed IT. The others had got out, Richie was halfway there. Stan and Eddie - Stan and Eddie -

Mike grimaced and ran a hand over his face. Stan and Eddie. 

It was guilt that was eating away at him, he knew. Guilt that he knew - or, at least, he thought he knew, _but did he really?_ \- shouldn’t rest on his shoulders. But rest it did. 

How cruel was it that he got to leave, and they never would, when it was him that had dragged them back here? Derry’s resident madman had finally lured the Lucky Seven back, and had gone and slashed their numbers to pieces. 

In the quieter moments since they came back from Neibolt, Mike had mulled it over in his mind. Was there something else he could’ve done? Something else he could’ve said? Even just thinking about the lie he’d told to draw them down into the sewers had Mike’s stomach rolling. And yet, they’d had to kill IT. Perhaps IT had required a sacrifice. 

_I nominate Eddie._

Mike winced. _Richie_. It wasn’t for nothing they’d called him Trashmouth as children, but really, Mike wondered if perhaps Richie was the most sensitive of them all, underneath all that quick wit. At thirteen, Mike had barely been able to keep up with him and had instead been content to observe. It was how Richie showed that he cared. The first time that Richie had called him ‘Homeschool’ and made some tasteless joke about how he was safer away from school, where the girls were likely to jump him, Mike knew he’d made it. 

Back then Richie had always been such a driving force for the Losers, and Mike was sure Richie himself didn’t have a clue. Even now, without him, what would they be? He kept the rest of them brave, made sure they didn’t quit, always had their backs. 

How much he must regret those words. So, now, Mike worried about him. Would he really leave Derry, if Eddie was still - 

The unrelenting, just, exhausted _acceptance_ on Richie’s face when he’d waved Mike off had been almost enough to make him stay. 

But, no. Richie would be okay. 

_They all have to make it on their own_ , a stray thought wandered into his mind. _If they’re all forgetting again._

Mike grit his teeth and clenched the leather under his palms. _It will be, what it will be._ He’d done enough fighting. 

Turning onto the main road out of Derry, Mike’s heart played a thudding tune against his ribcage. He chuckled a little to himself. Forty years old and this was officially the furthest he had ever been away from his home. 

Not his home anymore. What had Richie called him the other day, after he’d been waxing poetic about the Atlantic coast? Wanderboy. That’s it. Off of his first great adventure. The others would want this for him, no matter what. He chanted it in his mind, _they love me, they love me, they love me._ Usually, that little chant comforted him. In the times when he waited for them to return, he repeated those words over and over; knew them to be true, even if the others didn’t remember. 

In that moment, however, as he drove over the Derry limits, he felt oddly, completely, unmistakably _alone_.

A bang, a flash, his breath pulled from his chest as his heart lurched.

A burst of emptiness. 

Nothing. For so, so far. Except, what was that? In the distance? Was that -

Mike gasped, breath ragged like he’d run a marathon. He pulled onto the hard shoulder, eyeing the road behind him in the rearview. 

It all looked ordinary enough, but Mike felt anything but. He felt - He felt like he’d been snatched out of his body and set back down again, like, _like_ \- His heart and his lungs were racing from the shock of a kick start.

Instinctively, he grabbed his phone, rushing out a message to Richie. 

**The Losers Club**

**Learning with Mike**

@Señor Trashmouth Are you okay? Have you left yet?

00:02am

He waited for the message to send for several minutes before he realised he had no signal. 

This was just _silly_ , wasn’t it? Nothing bad had happened. He’d just gotten a little anxious about leaving Derry for the first time, that was all. 

A round of breathing exercises later and Mike joined the road once more, and he almost forgot all about it. _Almost_. That is, until he stopped off an hour later for a plate of eggs and a mug of tea. 

The vibe in the service station cafe was _retro_ , as Bev might have called it. Mike suspected Eddie would have had some more choice words. In any event, Mike took his seat and ordered, noticing with growing concern the general oddness of the world around him. 

The television near the kitchen was large and square, antenna sticking up from its top. The music he could hear playing was familiar in a way that half the songs he heard on the radio usually were not. Even the waitress, with her bushy perm and bangs, seemed to Mike to be something out of a memory. 

It was with a jolt that he realised what he had actually felt like earlier, in the car. It had been like one of IT’s visions, one of his illusions. Just like reality, but not quite right.

The woman came over with his food and saved Mike from his downward spiral. He thought, actually, underneath those bangs she looked kind, a smile on her face that was more than just a requirement. She was younger than Mike, but perhaps not as young as most people assumed. 

Mike thanked her and was about to try to force at least one egg down when he spotted the headline of the newspaper she was clearing away at the table across from him. 

“Could I,” he started, inclining his head when she startled. “Sorry, could I read that?”

The waitress shrugged, “Sure,” and placed it next to his tea.

It wasn’t actually the headline that had piqued Mike’s interest, but the picture below it. A crowd of people gathered in front of a rather rotund man - Mr Gardener, Mike recalled - holding a pair of giant scissors, bent down and posed as if he were about to cut through the large ribbon pulled across the doors of a department store. The grand opening of the new Shoeboat store in Bangor Mall. Mike remembered it well. Three days after it opened, it burnt down. Dozens of people had been trapped inside. It had reminded him of - _Well._

His eyes lingered on the date printed just below the extravagant, ‘Williamsburg Gazette’. 

That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. But, then - 

With a strange calmness washing over him, Miked turned his head back to the woman, still wiping down the table. He worked his features into what he hoped was a genial smile. “Could you tell me what the date is today?”

The woman’s face morphed into something like bemusement. “It’s the ninth of July,” she said. 

Ninth of July. That was _almost_ right. Mike licked his lips before he forced out, “And the year?”

“The year?” the woman repeated. Mike nodded. She frowned, and Mike felt a little sorry that he was the cause of such worry. “Nineteen ninety-three,” she said, slowly. “Are you alright?”

Nineteen ninety-three. 

“Yes, quite alright, thank you.”

Mike set down his cutlery, no longer hungry in the slightest.

Oh, _hell_. 

♜

Richie turned back on himself with an uncomfortable mixture of dread and relief. Almost as if he’d been waiting for something like this. Like he knew, in his marrow, that Derry wouldn’t let him leave so easily. 

If your version of easy was almost dying murdering a killer clown and the Goddamn love of your life - who you only just fucking remembered - dying painfully and slowly after getting skewered through the chest trying to save you _._ Sure.

He took some deep breaths.

This fucking town. He should have gone with Mike. Hell, he should’ve left with Bill, even. You didn’t see him coming back to investigate the weird, cosmic, all too familiar, changes he’d felt when he tried to get out of here. He was probably back in London, kicking it back with his wife and writing his next big blockbuster. 

_Focus, Richie._

While pondering his next steps, parked on the side of the road, he’d gone through the motions of calling his agent back. He was fairly certain at the time that the call wouldn’t go through. That was part of the reason he allowed himself to make it - at least now he could quell his guilt with a, ‘Well I _tried_ ’. All he had got in reward was silence. Not even a dialling tone. Not even a ‘number unavailable’. 

As he breached the residential roads once more, Richie didn’t allow himself to settle on an idea of what he thought was happening. Several options were cartwheeling through his mind, first amongst them, severe emotional breakdown. That was a whole thing, right? Comedians and problems with their mental health. And it’s not like Richie had been fucking a-okay even before he remembered about IT, and, you know, the fact that he was _not-straight_ , which it turned out he’d been repressing his whole Goddamn life. Throw Stan and then Eddie on top of that, and Richie thought he was due some kind of break from reality. He’d done pretty well to avoid it so far. 

_Yeah, Richie, you should be proud._

Of course, there was the other, annoyingly possible option of IT still being alive and fucking with him in some kind of bizarre, horrible, long-con time mess. But Richie wasn’t going to just leave it at that. He was an artist, a _creative_ , he was thinking outside of the box, too. Maybe he was in a parallel dimension, maybe he’d time travelled, _maybe_ there’d been some magnetic pulse across the entire world, and everyone had felt it - Oh! What if it was some kind of mirrorverse thing? He’d seen enough ‘Star Trek’ to know how this worked. Perhaps it would turn out that _he_ was the evil mirror version of himself. That would be pretty great. Although, would he have to murder himself? Even for Richie, who had what he considered a healthy level of disdain for himself, that was taking it a bit far. Besides, his track record for murdering wasn’t great. He really didn’t have the stomach for it.

He was pulled out of his stream of thoughts rather abruptly by a group of kids gathered on the sidewalk. _Kids_. More teenagers, really, stuck still in that purgatory between their child and adult bodies, all long limbs and big hands and soft, podgy middles. The thing was, they didn’t look _right._ And Richie wasn’t entirely out of the loop, he lived in LA for God’s sake, he knew some things. He _knew_ that fashion went in circles and that it was the height of cool these days to look like you’d just fallen out of an episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’. Either these kids were serious about the authenticity of their vintage get up, or Richie was in some serious trouble. 

Just as his car drew level with the small group, one of the girls looked up at him - perhaps aware of someone staring at her. Richie might have stopped looking, might have turned his eyes back to the road in a fit of ‘Oh, crap, I’m a middle-aged man staring at a teenage girl’ self-awareness, but he recognised her. Holy _shit._

It was Ashley Allen. Double A. She’d been in Richie’s Spanish class in Sophomore year. She’d had the squeakiest laugh imaginable and it had brought Richie hours of joy trying to imitate, much to the annoyance of the rest of the Losers. 

What the hell was going on? Why the hell did she look exactly like she had when Richie had last seen her on the steps of Derry High School in 1994? 

He’d been joking with himself a little about the time travel thing, but - holy shit _-_ _maybe_.

She frowned at him, nudging some of the others and, Christ, Richie recognised a few of their faces, too. He slumped a little lower in his seat, watching them still in his mirror, knuckles white against his steering wheel. They weren’t looking at him, though, he realised. They were staring, opened mouthed, at his car. 

A sudden sick feeling worked its way up Richie’s throat and he gagged, pushing it down.

He needed to get away from the center of town. 

In a fit of complete and utter mind-blankness, Richie went to the only abandoned place he could remember from the nineties, save from the Goddamn House of Horror; the Ironworks. 

What had drawn him there, God only knew, but the second that he turned off his engine at the point where the dusty road vanished under the overgrowth, his panic ebbed somewhat. What could be worse than what had already happened, really? He’d been attacked by an interdimensional being, he’d forgotten the people he’d loved the most for twenty-seven years, he’d been hiding his true self for just as long. 

Eddie was dead. 

What was a bit of time travel to top it off? It was nothing. 

Richie wrinkled his nose, mulling it over as he let his eyes travel across the ruins of the old Kitchener place. It had been a local legend, what had happened at the Ironworks in days gone by, but, of course it had been IT. It was all IT. This was probably IT, as well, but that was fine. They’d defeated him twice, they could do it a third time. 

A large black bird - a crow, a raven? - landed on the outer rim of one of the giant, brick chimneys where it had fallen into the earth. Richie stared at it. 

_They_. 

But were they a ‘they’ this time around? They were becoming less and less ‘they’ by the minute. First Stan, then -

Richie blinked. 

No. _No fucking way_. 

He scrambled for the door handle and practically launched himself out of the car. Bent down low, he scurried along the edge of the old building, keeping his eyes trained on the spot in front of him. A boy, tall and gangly, strolled through the derelict site at a leisurely pace. Richie could only see the back of his head, but that was all he needed. The Ironworks had been a shortcut back when they were teenagers, from the new residential development on the outskirts of town back into the Barrens. This boy traversed the steps that Richie had known so well in his own youth, now with Richie following behind like some kind of creeper. 

Why hadn’t he thought of this? Why the fuck hadn’t he thought of this!? He’d travelled back in time. He’d seen ‘Back to the Future’ too many fucking times to count, he should have realised. 

_You know what this means, Richie_. 

Of course he knew what this meant; it was why his heart was beating like a cornered gazelle against his rib cage, why his glasses were sliding down his nose with how much he was sweating, why his legs were so Goddamn shaky as he tried to follow the boy. 

The boy. The boy with that familiar head of curly hair, neatly tied shoes, and pristine collar. 

Stanley _fucking_ Uris.

~

If Richie had thought he’d felt ill when he’d first spotted Ashley Allen from Spanish class on the side of the road, or even when the cold claw of recognition at seeing Stan again had gripped him, it was nothing - _nothing_ \- to how he felt seeing all seven of them gathered on the bank of the Kenduskeag. 

From his vantage point within the trees, further down the river, he couldn’t make out any great detail, but he didn’t need to. He knew those kids like the back of his hand. He knew the way they stood, knew the way they laughed, the way they _breathed_. 

Much like always, they were gathered around Big Bill. Bev was lounging near the water’s edge, running her fingers through the current, her red hair curling at her collarbone. Ben, still sweet and round, like a human peach, kept flicking his gaze towards her as Bill spoke. 

That’s right, Richie thought. He never did make a move, and this was his last chance. This summer - the summer where Bev had long hair again - was the last summer they spent together. After this Bev’s aunt stopped sending her back. They never saw her again, until Mike called them out of the blue.

The younger Mike was perched next to Bill now, nodding along in the most Mike-like fashion that Richie could imagine. _God_ , he’d done that, hadn’t he? Gone along with them and their stupid ideas all the time. And look at how long it had taken the rest of them to come around to his plan. What a bunch of bastards they were.

Further inland, Stan stood with his arms crossed, eyes focused on Bill and Mike. Behind him, Richie only lingered a short while on himself. He didn’t need long to recognise the frantic need to be _seen_ bursting through him in every single move. Of course it was obvious, and of course, next to him, always next to him, was Eddie. 

Still with his fanny pack and a short-sleeved polo, Richie watched himself watch Eddie. He must be about sixteen or seventeen here, Richie thought, squinting over to the group. The dark hair that curled around Eddie’s ears was just a little too long, his face caught in a pout as he frowned at whatever Bill was saying, his hands resting on his hips in a way that reminded Richie so forcefully of his adult self, it almost sent him reeling. 

He was alive. 

It was almost too much to think about, too much to acknowledge; that in thirty years, that boy would be bleeding out in the sewers, after showing the world just how brave Eddie Kaspbrak truly was.

_Who killed a psychotic clown before he was fourteen?_

Richie shifted, the pebbles beneath his feet clacking against each other. Birds sang, the river rushed, and the Losers remained glued to each other. The biggest thing, Richie thought, the thing that he kept coming back to, was how very young they all looked. Older than when they had battled IT for the first time, sure, but still so, so young. 

A pang of _something_ echoed inside him, flowing from his core into his fingers, into his toes.

With a lurch, Richie realised what it was. _Homesickness_. It was the relief of someone who’d been travelling for too long, who had finally made it back where he belonged. Richie recognised the tug in his chest from when he’d first seen Ben and Bev outside the Jade of the Orient. From when he’d laid his eyes on Mike and Bill. When he’d finally seen Eddie again, after all those years. 

The group of them were joking now, clearly teasing Stan about something, as the other boy narrowed his lips in that way he did when he was trying not to smile. 

Just as Richie watched himself speak, clearly attempting some kind of impression, if the odd way he was holding his arms was anything to go by, a hand wrapped around his shoulder.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” he gasped, lurching forward and rolling over in the dirt. 

“Calm d-down, you juh-juh-giant fucking puh-puppet man.”

_“Bill!?”_

“No shit,” Bill hissed back at him, before his face split into a smile. “Jesus, I sure guh-gave you a scare, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, well,” Richie grumbled, wiping off his hands on his jeans as he rose to his feet again. He spared a look down the river, but none of them seemed to have noticed anything. “The bar’s not particularly high right now. Where the fuck have you been?” he snapped. “I’ve been sending you messages all week like some kind of fucking lovesick teenager. Not cool, bro.”

“All week? What duh-duh-do you mean? And take a guess at where I’ve been, T-Trashmouth. The middle of the nuh-nineteen-nineties, thank you very m-much.”

Richie pushed his glasses further up his nose. _He didn’t forget_. “You’ve been here all this time?” he asked, a little stunned. 

Bill shook his head. “I just g-got here.”

“No, but it, like,” Richie waved his hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “The past, dude.”

“No, _I juh-just got here_ ,” Bill repeated. “I was driving out to the airp-p-port and then, boom, everything wuh-wuh-wuh - it all changed.”

Didn’t that sound familiar. “But, but that was a week ago.” Richie muttered, almost to himself. He flicked his gaze back to the younger group for a second. Back to Eddie and Big Bill and _Haystack_. “The same thing happened to me. When I tried to leave,” he said, turning to the older, more tired, but still their leader Bill. “How did you end up here?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I d-drove, to the - You know the road off Up-Mile Hill? I just, f-fuh-felt like I _should_ go there, you know? Like I had to.” Bill was frowning, like he was trying to remember something, reaching for something just out of reach. _Just on the tip of his tongue. The turtle._ “Then I s-saw myself. Freaked the f-fuck out.”

“Naturally,” Richie inclined his head.

“I followed him. Muh-myself.”

Bill was staring at Richie with wide eyes, oddly focused, and Richie got the idea that he was avoiding looking at their younger counterparts. “It’s wild,” Richie offered, lamely.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s IT?” he asked.

Bill shook his head. “We killed IT,” he said, resolutely. Richie wished he could have that kind of confidence.

“We thought that before.”

“We definitely k-k-killed it. Maybe this is, like, it’s dying thuh-throes. Or something.”

“Poetic, Bill Big. But not helpful.” Richie sighed. He was starting to feel ill again, so he focused on something more positive. Or, well, that depended on perspective, he supposed. “If the two of us are here, do you reckon the same thing happened to the others? Ben and Bev, and Mike?”

“Probably. We t-tend to attract pretty bad luck as a group.” Bill’s eyes were finally drawn away to the group, but rather than further worry, he smiled. Chuckled, even. “I forgot how horrid your sh-shirts used to be.”

Richie spun slowly and crouched down, spotting himself wearing a multicoloured work of art. He’d found that one in a garage sale, he recalled faintly. Mike had been with him, had made some small attempts to stop him, but Richie had bought it anyway. It had little lightning bolts on it, how could he not? 

“‘Used to be’?” Richie-of-present (future?) scoffed. “Aw, shucks. You don’t need to flatter me, Bill. I’m yours, just say the word.”

“Shit, I cuh-can’t believe this.”

“You better, baby.”

“Why can’t this just end?” Bill groaned then, pressing his hands to his face. 

“You wanna know something sad?” Richie said with a grimace. “I’m kinda relieved. I thought - Mike and I had an idea that maybe all of you forgot about everything after you left.”

Bill peered out from behind his fingers. “Turns out we just got sucked into a wuh-wormhole or some shit,” he said, flatly.

“But at least you haven’t forgotten my handsome face.”

“S-small mercies,” he sighed, dropping his hands to his hips and shrugging. “Come on, then.” 

“‘Come on, then,’ what?”

“Let’s go and chuh-check the roads out of t-town.”

Richie smiled. “I did always want to go on a road trip with you, Big Bill,” he said, clapping Bill on the shoulder. 

Before they were completely out of sight, Richie sent one last look over his shoulder at their younger selves. Whole and together for one final summer.

♜

“Do you think we should be slightly more tripped out by, you know, existing in the same time and space as our seventeen-year-old selves?” Richie pondered out loud as he tucked into his hamburger. _God, they didn’t make them like this anymore_. Mustard dripped down his thumb. “What if we ‘Butterfly Effect’ this shit show?”

“I never saw ‘Butterfly Effect’,” Mike mused, frowning down at his plain black coffee. 

Ben made a strange noise in the back of his throat. “You should check it out, it’s pretty good.”

“Of course you’d like it, Haystack,” Richie was compelled to say. “You absolute piece of … wet _toast_. Ignore him, Mikey.”

“‘Wet toast’?” Bev spluttered, grinning behind her hand. Richie tried not to feel too delighted at having made _someone_ laugh, at least, in this complete mess of a situation.

“C-c-can we get back to the muh-matter in hand?”

Richie raised his palms in the air, forcing a suitably contrite expression onto his face as Bill stared them all down. “ _Awfully sorry, old chap._ _Lord Denbrough has the floor_.”

It had taken them a few hours to gather up the remaining lost Losers. They’d been pretty much tackled by Ben and Bev as they made their way across town. Bev’s shriek of ‘Richard Tozier’ from the other side of the high street had startled them both back to last Tuesday. _Geez,_ Richie really needed to work on that. Tag-teaming their explanation, Richie and Bill eventually learned from Ben and Bev that they had made it several miles out of Derry before they realised something was wrong. Yes, they’d seen the same disconcerting flashing light show, but had both decided that it was nothing. Richie could appreciate that; he’d very much wanted it to be nothing himself. It wasn’t until they diverted through a small town along the way - a change of scenery, to soak in the quaint New England architecture, how very _Ben Hanscom_ \- that they’d noticed the strangeness of their surroundings. 

They’d turned around then, had only just arrived back in Derry when they found Richie and Bill.

Mike, on the other hand, had taken some hunting down. He wasn’t lingering by any of the exit roads, wasn’t at the library, nor at the Aladdin. He wasn’t in Memorial Park, where the old standpipe towered over them, or Bassey Park, where Richie kept one eye on the Paul Bunyan statue while the others scoured the crowds. 

They didn’t dare check the clubhouse.

Eventually, they found him back at the Derry Town House, a building which looked, surprisingly, not that much more inspiring for being over twenty years younger. 

“I figured you all come back here,” he’d said, with such a sincere expression that Richie had kept the, ‘It took me long enough to build up the nerve to leave this place, that coming back almost amounts to self-sabotage,’ to himself.

Crowded around a table at the diner in the centre of town, however, Richie was feeling decidedly less horrified. Really, if you thought about it, it was actually quite hilarious. This town just did not quit, did it?

He’d said as much to the others, who’d sighed at him with unsympathetic grimaces.

Instead, they listened to Bill. Big Bill, who had a plan. And Richie reckoned he could bet all the favours in Hollywood that he knew what that plan was going to be. From the sour look on Bev’s face, she was just as thrilled about the possibility as Richie was.

“It has to be IT,” Bill said. Exactly on cue.

“Not three hours ago, you said you were sure IT was dead,” Richie retorted and sat back against the too-firm seat.

Bill gripped his mug. “I know.”

“What happened to ‘it’s dying throes’?”

“I still think that, but, just -” He let his gaze travel across the four others around the table. “What else could it be? If this is some kind of last-ditch Pennywise fever dream, then we still need to stop it, don’t we? We still need to find _IT_ again.”

“Do we?” Richie muttered. The others ignored him, not that he’d expected any different.

“So,” Ben croaked. “What’s the plan?”

Bill looked a little tense, then, like he sometimes had when forced to make big decisions on behalf of the group. Instead, he turned to his faithful lieutenant. “Mike, what do you think?”

It took a few moments for Mike to answer. The sounds of the dinner clattered around them, and Richie wondered if he was the only one that thought even this, this perfectly average place, just sounded _different_ than the future. 

“Not sure there’ll be much in any books about cosmic clowns sending people back through time,” Mike said, slowly, meeting Bill’s gaze. 

Bill nodded. “Well, then, we’ll have to do our own research.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Bev hummed, curling forward in a strange, almost protective stance. Richie closed his eyes. He knew what was coming. 

“Neibolt.”

“No,” Richie grit out, barely giving Bill a chance to finish the word.

“Richie,” Ben tried, but Richie wasn’t having it.

“ _No,_ ” he said again. How could they not get it? Eddie had died there, had bled and hurt and been abandoned. He couldn’t go back, he _couldn’t_.

“We can’t not though, can we?” Bill persevered. He was frowning, like he knew what he was saying was a punch to Richie’s gut, but he had to say it anyway. “It’s the most likely answer.”

Richie wrinkled his nose, staring down at the dregs of his coffee. “What’s that saying?” he muttered, barely moving his lips. “Something about doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results?”

“The definition of insanity,” Mike replied. “Einstein.”

“Yeah.” Richie sighed, closing his eyes. “Old Albert. He was a guy who knew stuff. Maybe we should take his advice on board. I’m sure Pennywise would enjoy a change of scenery as much as we would.”

The table clattered and Richie opened his eyes again, landing on an exasperated looking Bill. “Alright, R-Richie, what do you suggest, then?”

“I don’t suggest anything, Bill,” he replied with a shrug. “I just - I just give up, I think.”

At his left, Bev whined, her fingers curling around the sleeve of his jacket. “Richie, no.”

“No, I mean, seriously.” He twisted in his seat, pushing his glasses up his nose and running a hand through his hair. “Fuck it. I ain’t got anything keeping me in twenty-sixteen, why the fuck do I care? I’ll just go invest in Google or some shit, make my millions and let little Richie deal with the killer clown.”

“That’s not true, Richie,” Bev insisted. “There’s so much for you in the future.”

“Name one fucking thing.”

The expression on Bev’s face was so hurt, that Richie almost felt guilty. “Your tour,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “Your family, _us._ ”

“You’re all here with me, so,” Richie dismissed. A silenced settle around the table for a moment, as everyone considered Richie’s new-found pessimism. 

“Giving up,” Ben echoed, after a moment. He regarded Richie with an inscrutable look. Richie fiddled with the handle of his coffee mug. “Doesn’t sound like the Richie Tozier I know.”

“Yeah, well, maybe the Richie Tozier you knew is gone.”

_He stayed down there, under Neibolt with Eddie. Not even Ben Hanscom could drag him out._

“Maybe,” Ben said, lightly. He took a sip of his drink. “He would have gone for little Dick.”

Richie frowned, looking up. “What?” 

“Little Dick, instead of little Richie.”

Little Dick. Shit. He’d missed a trick, there. Missed a chuck that even old Haystack had seen. 

“That would be crass, Ben,” Richie said, twisting his face into something suitably austere. “I’m a man of integrity. You know this.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Ben replied, over the sound of the bell above the door jingling loudly.

“I must be getting you confused with your mom.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Mike joined in with a dry chuckle.

From across the table, Bill’s face softened with a small smile. “Mrs Kuh-kuh-kuh - _Sonia_ will be heartbroken,” he offered. 

Richie rubbed his jaw, meeting Bill’s gaze. “Ah, I wore her down. Moving on to pastures new.”

Bev dropped her hand into her face. “Beep-beep, Richie,” she said, in a tone as familiar to Richie as his own name.

“What d’you say?” came Richie’s response. Except it wasn’t _him_ Richie.

The five of them jerked their heads up, only to be faced with the Losers Club, circa 1993, standing at the edge of their table. Every single one of them had matching looks of bewilderment on their young faces. 

Richie’s heart dropped into his stomach. 

“Oh, shit.”

♞

It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise, Bill pondered as they hurtled towards Mike’s truck, that his younger counterpart would come to the exact same conclusion as he did. 

Pennywise.

He was an inescapable, devouring ghost in Bill’s mind. Even when he’d forgotten, even when he didn’t know, he _knew._ The evidence was there, wasn’t it? In his books, in his caged off emotions, in his cynicism - something he used to wear with such pride. 

It was all IT, there from the start, still burrowing under his skin. It was already digging down, even at seventeen.

The kids, with almost comical expressions, seemed to click pretty quickly who the hell they were all supposed to be. Maybe you would recognise yourself quicker than anyone else, Bill thought. Immediately he tried to picture himself in thirty more years, grey and wrinkled and hunched over. 

Yeah. Maybe he’d run away, too.

The older troupe - _God, they had to think of a better way to differentiate themselves_ \- piled on top of each other, Bill and Bev shoved together in the front passenger seat, Ben and Richie in the back. When Mike swung the vehicle hard around the corner (their younger counterparts had gotten a head start, but Mike hadn’t spent his whole life in Derry for nothing, it seemed, as he navigated the roads with enviable ease), Bev’s thigh pressed against Bill’s. He smiled, thinking of their shared kiss; two days ago, decades ago. It wasn’t them now, of course, it was never going to be, but back when he was still learning the language of his heart, he’d thought _maybe._

What was Audra doing now? Was she thinking of him? He hoped so.

The truck came careening to a halt in the middle of the deserted road and Bill lurched forward, seat belt tugging against his shoulder. Beyond the window pain, the young Losers glowered. Bill knew those looks. That must have been what IT had seen and ignored in the sewers that day in 1989. 

Well. Bill wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

He sent a sombre warning glance over his shoulder before stepping out onto the tarmac.

“Stay back!” teen Bill yelled immediately. He had a lump of old wood in his hands - no doubt something he picked up from the side of the road - and he held it high like a baseball batter readying up. 

“We’re not IT, alright,” Bill stressed, moving forward in the smallest increments he could manage. 

_“Bill_ ,” he heard Ben hiss at him, but he waved him off. 

“What will it t-take to convince you?” he carried on, eyes focused on his young self. So much pent-up energy there, so much still to conquer. 

He hated looking at it dead on.

“Shouldn’t you nuh-nuh-know, since you’re supposed to b-be me, right?” the younger shot back, sneering a little. “Shouldn’t this have already happened for y-you, if you’re tuh-t-telling the truth?”

Bill laughed, void of any humour. “Yeah, well it hasn’t q-quite worked out that w-way.” And, damn it, he sounded just like his father, just like all the grown-ups he’d ever encountered. When had that happened?

The others - young and older - remained quiet around the two of them. Like the audience in a gladiator’s arena, waiting for the first hit. 

Bill crept closer.

“I’m n-not juh-juh-joking!” teen Bill yelled again, swinging his makeshift bat in the space between them. He was still so lithe that half his body seemed to travel with it. “Stay back!”

This wasn’t getting them anywhere fast. “Juh-just _shit_! Fuck,” Bill grimaced, turning to the others for inspiration. Mike shrugged at him. Bev shook her head. Richie - Richie was just staring. Thankfully, Ben had his wits about him still. 

“Ask him something,” he said, directly to the younger Bill. “Something that only he would know.”

The boy blinked. “I - I - IT knows everything.”

_You weren’t really that sick that morning, were you?_

“That’s not true,” Bill spoke up, raising himself to full height, which, admittedly, was barely taller than his seventeen-year-old self. “You know that’s not true.”

_He thrusts his fists against the posts -_

Bill grit his teeth and tried very hard not to think about IT in the basement; looking like Georgie. Looking like _him_. 

_\- and still insists he sees the ghosts._

This wasn’t the same. 

“It doesn’t have to b-be something you’re scared of. In fact, m-make sure i-i-it isn’t,” he said. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

After a few long moments, younger Bill shifted and his hands lowered. 

_“Bill_ ,” Stan called over his shoulder. _Oh, Stan_. Teen Bill spared him a look before slowly turning back to Bill. 

“The dog,” he said. “The one that lives in the house at -”

“- at the back of Nana’s yard,” Bill finished.

Young Bill nodded. “What did I call it? In my head?”

Bill smiled. He hadn’t thought about that dog in years. Georgie had loved it, had spent hours in the summer throwing balls over the fence for it. 

“Dino,” he said. “You called him Dino.”

There was a moment where Bill thought it wouldn’t work. _It’s not enough_. But then, the younger stood taller, the plank of wood clattering against the surface of the road. 

“Well, what the f-f- _fuck_ ,” he spluttered, and an almost physical wave of relief washed out from where the pair stood, dowsing the others around them. “I mean, I nuh-know it could be IT, but, I just … buh-buh- _believe_ you. I don’t know why.”

“Come on,” the younger Bev started, eyeing the rest of them still with a little suspicion. Her gaze travelled up and down Bev’s body. “Let’s get this off the street.”

What felt like hours later, Bill’s voice was hoarse from all the explaining, Mike and Ben and Bev dipping in when needed. They must have repeated themselves a hundred times. It was hard to know what to say and what not to. Mike had already cut him off at several points. To him, it seemed, anything about the specifics of IT was off the table. They got the general gist across, though. The kids - Bill had settled on ‘the kids’ in his mind, even if it wasn’t entirely accurate - took it in their stride. 

“I ‘spose I figured it would come back,” young Ben mumbled where he was curled in on himself in the corner of Bill’s dad’s garage. When they’d arrived, the adults had all very studiously kept themselves near the exit, while simultaneously trying to avoid being spotted by any of the Denbrough seniors. _Imagine trying to explain this to Zack Denbrough, Jesus wept_. The kids weren’t so bothered. Perhaps it was true about kids and resilience, or perhaps they were just already starting to forget.

Young Bev grunted in agreement. 

“But we get it though?” Eddie asked for possibly the fifth time. “I mean, you definitely killed it this time?” His eyes flicked between Bill and Mike, near the front. 

Bill shrugged. “He looked pretty dead to me.”

Much as it had done the first four times, this seemed to soothe young Eddie somewhat. Mike sighed next to him. ‘Give it five minutes,’ that sigh said. 

Young Mike, however, was standing in the centre of the room, his arms crossed. “Where are -” he started, before cutting himself off. Bill’s heart sunk. He thought he knew where this was going. Why Mike was hesitant to ask. “Where are Eddie and Stan?”

The garage was silent for a moment as the older Losers stared. Were they thinking the same things as Bill, he wondered. They couldn’t possibly tell them, but what in the hell would get them to drop the topic? Even then, the glint in young Bill’s eyes, in young Richie’s, was nothing short of intimidating. 

“Not h-here,” Bill said, eventually. He felt the sigh that Richie let out in the corner behind him. Richie who hadn’t said a single word since they’d encountered the younger group. 

This time, it wasn’t enough. “So, where?” Stan threw back. 

Bill grimaced. “I - I don’t know. Does it matter?” He turned to Mike for help. 

“They didn’t get caught in whatever this is,” Mike added, his voice deeper than usual, as if he were attempting to impart some adult authority into the proceedings. That’s what they needed right now, Bill thought wryly; a proper adult, not the complete mess that made up the Losers. 

Young Mike opened his mouth again, but Bev cut him off, redirecting their thoughts. “How come you thought we were IT? Isn't he sleeping now?” she asked. She was sitting on an old garden chair, covered in dust and cobwebs. As she spoke, she cocked her head to the side a little, red hair spilling in loose curls around her jaw, her eyes fixed on young Bill. Bill almost felt sorry for the kid. Almost.

“Wuh-wuh-what else would you b-b-be?”

“Fair point,” Mike said with a laugh under his breath.

Young Bill glanced at him before his eyes landed on Bev once more. “You looked sad.”

“‘Sad’?” Ben repeated, forehead furrowed. He stepped forward.

It was a funny thing, but whenever Ben spoke, all the younger Losers seemed to pause. Freeze, almost, just to stare at him for a second before their brains kicked in again. Bill bit his lip. 

“I thought - thought m-maybe it was a ‘Wonderful Life’ s-s-sort of thing.”

“‘Wonderful -’” Ben pouted. “I’m not sure I follow. You thought we were your guardian angels?”

Young Bill actually smiled for a second and Bill - _Jesus_. Bill remembered that smile. Or, no, he supposed he remembered what that smile felt like. Did he smile the same now? He could barely tell. In any case, the expression soon left the boy’s face, traded in for something a little more … shy. “No, no. No way. I - I mean - You looked old and sad, like,” he trailed off.

“Come on, kid,” Bill encouraged.

The boy slumped, resigned to whatever it was. “Like the w-worst version of the future,” he said, slowly.

There was a beat of silence before the sound of Richie’s laughter filled the garage. “Oh, man. That’s perfect. Fucking ace.” He locked eyes with Bill. “Out of the mouths of babes,” he finished, eyebrows raised. 

Bill grumbled. “Sure. Well, thanks for that, buddy.”

Ben, however, clicked his tongue. “I mean, he’s not wrong.”

“Ben -”

“No, Ben’s right,” Bev interrupted, turning where she sat to look at them all. “Wasn’t that the whole point? We all forgot each other. We all,” she let out a breath. She looked so far away. “It could have been so different.”

There was a beat before Stan asked, eyebrows raised, “‘Forgot’?” _Ever observant_.

“Never mind,” Mike attempted to brush off. 

A strangled groan came from the corner. “They’re not going to tell us anything, what’s the point!” young Richie yelled, pointing an opened palm towards them all in a very Eddie-like manner. Evidently following older Richie’s lead, he had been similarly quiet up till now. That was the thing with Richie, though, Bill mused. He never was _quiet_ , not really. Even when he wasn’t talking, he was thinking a mile a minute. At least when he was saying nonsense out loud you knew where you were. It was when the noise stopped that Bill had always felt a little at sea with him. 

Case in point. 

“You shut your mouth, alright,” older Richie snapped, eyes bright in the dark room. He looked tired, had looked that way - almost like a shadow - since … since Neibolt. “I’ve been through some real shit this past week,” he carried on, the kids gawking. Eddie’s mouth had dropped open, perhaps at the shock of hearing the older man speak at last. “I don’t need -”

“ _Richie_ ,” Bev said, gently, laying a hand on his arm. 

He shut up almost as quickly as he’d started. His younger version stared with magnified eyes from behind his glasses, but stayed similarly quiet. _What was he thinking?_

“Look,” Mike said, in a tone of finality. “How about we leave it there for tonight, huh? Your parents will be expecting you home soon. We can all _… ruminate_ on everything.”

Young Richie snorted. “‘Ruminate’. Sure thing.” He dragged himself away from the wall, nudging Eddie with his elbow as he stalked towards the door. “Come on, Eds, I’ll give you a ride. Bev,” he called over his shoulder. “You want one?”

The younger Bev turned the offer down and, as the other kids gathered their things, Bill watched Richie and Eddie leave, bumping shoulders as they went. Richie was probably just worried about Eddie's absence, they’d always been closer than the rest of them - not that Bill had really noticed until senior year. It was with a jolt that he remembered that young Richie had good reason to worry. That Eddie wouldn’t be around forever. 

He licked his lips, dropped his head to his hands and breathed in the familiar smell of his childhood. 

_How the hell were they going to fix this?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr masterpost](https://missberrycake.tumblr.com/post/633167580896624640/the-king-is-gone-by-missberrycake-chapter-1)
> 
> The songs used in the podfic of this story are:
> 
> [Seventeen](https://youtu.be/j7sTHoeH0eA) by Sharon Van Etten  
> [What’s Up?](https://youtu.be/ntM5jkJwI6s) by 4 Non Blondes, performed by The Running Mates  
> [Smells Like Teen Spirit](https://youtu.be/UKN6IqpcAk8) by Nirvana, performed by Think Up Anger  
> [Friday I’m in Love](https://youtu.be/U7mxx7N7BxU) by The Cure, performed by Kate Rusby  
> [My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)](https://youtu.be/IHV1wdNHSRM) by Neil Young, performed by Grace Milton  
> [It (2017) Official Soundtrack](https://youtu.be/8bIcOwdzywQ) by Benjamin Wallfisch
> 
> Also used are [We Didn’t Start the Fire](https://youtu.be/eFTLKWw542g) \- Billy Joel, [I’m on Fire](https://youtu.be/1VxFS5-klfk) \- Bruce Springsteen, and [Landslide](https://youtu.be/D-yLyaHF1oo) \- Alice Kristiansen (Fleetwood Mac).


	2. Taking the Fall

_ “Twenty-five years and my life is still _

_ Tryin’ to get up that great big hill of hope.” _

\- 4 Non Blondes,

‘What’s Up?’

* * *

_ "Oh, when I was in love with you, _

_ Then I was clean and brave, _

_ And miles around the wonder grew _

_ How well did I behave." _

\- A. E. Housman,

'Oh, When I Was in Love With You'

* * *

♜

Eddie would hate this, Richie thought, rolling over in his too-small sleeping bag. He couldn’t get comfortable, the ground too hard against his old and tired body, his thoughts whirling in his head like ships lost in a storm. 

He’d been half bracing himself to camp out in Bill’s dad’s garage - a nightmarish prospect for so many reasons - but luck was finally on their side in the form of Mike’s truck. As little as Richie had thought he’d left with, what he did pack included two tents.

“I’ve never travelled before,” Mike had said quickly when Richie had quirked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know how it’s done.”

“I’m more of a hotel with well-stocked mini-bar kind of man, myself,” he’d replied. 

Certainly, he’d been feeling more like himself the further they got away from those kids.  _ Those kids.  _ Richie scoffed.  _ You mean, Eddie. You mean, yourself before you got so scared of failing that you never even tried. _

Even Bill had noticed enough to comment, as they untangled endless poles and pegs at the edge of the Barrens. 

“You’ve not said much, Rich,” he’d said, smoothly. 

Big Bill had been alarmingly relaxed when they all immediately vetoed his suggestion of going back into the sewers then and there. What a fucking madman. Perhaps the rejection had turned him melancholy. 

“Yeah,” Richie had replied, simply. “I’m ‘ruminating’.”

None of them had bought it, that was blindingly obvious, but they were polite enough not to push him any further. 

No, Richie was doing that enough himself. 

Now, with nothing but the stars above him, Ben and Bev breathing in regular patterns next to him in his tent, Richie was rolling over the events of the day. 

Eddie had been there, in the flesh, the very picture of potential. And he’d been so  _ alive _ , hadn’t he, as a kid. So ... so full of fire. Spit and vinegar, as his dad always said. To have that taken away, it was just  _ cruel. _ But, then, what was IT if not a cruel bastard? 

It was morbid, but the idea crept up to Richie in the barren darkness that maybe this was punishment. 

_ You left him to die. You loved him, and you left him, bleeding and alone. _

At his shoulder, Bev let out a heavy breath. Richie shoved her. He was falling too far down the rabbit hole. Surely Beverly Marsh could pull him back out. She’d always been good at that. Not as good as - Well, she was the best option he had. 

Evidently a heavy sleeper, Bev simply frowned and rolled over. 

Pausing for a second to roll his eyes at the way she shifted closer to Ben - was there a parallel universe somewhere where Eddie would curl himself into Richie’s chest while they slept? A foolhardy thought, but Richie never had to voice it, did he? - he poked the back of her shoulder. 

“Bev,” he whispered. Then, louder, “Beverly.”

“Huh?” she huffed, jerking awake, her glassy eyes like laser points on him for a second until she relaxed. “‘Chie?” she slurred. “Wassit?”

Richie couldn’t help the snort that fell out of him. “Wow, looking sharp, Miss Marsh.”

“Fuck off,” she replied, eloquently, pushing herself up onto her elbows. Next to her, Ben slept on. “You okay? What’s up? Something happen?”

Her head flicked around the quiet tent in alarm and Richie rushed out, “No, it’s fine, everything’s fine. I just -” He bit his lip. It seemed so stupid now. “I can’t sleep.”

Far from dismissing him, Bev sent him a sad smile. God, that’s the opposite of what he wanted; that made it worse.

“Thinking about Eddie?” she said, softly, hitting bullseye on her first go.  _ She always had been the best shot _ . Richie shrugged. “What’s going on in that head, Trashmouth?”

“Oh, the usual, you now. Mothballs and tumbleweed.” He tapped his knuckles against his skull for good measure. Bev didn’t smile. He shifted onto his back as the cicadas chirped beyond the tent walls. Maybe this would be easier if he didn’t have to see her. “Do you think - I was just - I think it’s because we left him.”

“Who? Eddie?”

“Who else did we leave?” he croaked. “Yeah, Eds. We left him down there, and now we’ll be stuck in this loop of having to fight IT forever. We’ll get out of this  _ whatever _ , and it’ll be something else.” He blinked up at the canvas roof, imagining he could see through it; all of the stars in the universe. “It’ll be infinite.”

In the silence, he could practically hear Bev thinking. When she eventually spoke, he braced. “I don’t think Pennywise is interested in punishment,” she said, carefully. "Revenge, maybe, but not -"

Richie grit his teeth. “But it’s like Karma, isn’t it. It’s what I deserve.”

“That’s not how I see it.” Their sleeping bags slid against one another as she turned to face him. He could see her face, blurred out from beyond the corner of his glasses. “You know, when we first saw them -  _ us _ \- the rest of you all seemed so scared. But I thought - I thought,  _ God _ . What a gift. Stan and Eddie, alive and happy,” she said. Richie closed his eyes as she spoke their names, so sweet and soft in her gentle voice. “I never thought I’d see them again, and there they were. Young and bright and burning. If this  _ is _ IT toying with us, he sure made a mistake, because, you know, this was just what I wanted. A second chance, to say goodbye.”

Richie grimaced. What a Goddamn  _ sweet _ way to see it. Trust Bev to find the beautiful among the blood and the bone that obscured Richie’s vision. Why couldn’t he be like her? Her and Ben and their picture-perfect life. He let out a long breath.

“God, I wish - Bev, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like -” His voice broke and he struggled around the word. “It’s torture. It’s some twisted torture, right where I hurt the most.” Bev didn’t feel it, because she wasn’t the one that left him. “Like hell. My own, personal hell. I brought it on myself.”

Bev let out a pained cry. “Oh, darling man. How could you think you’ve done anything to earn a place in hell?” she said. “That’s not for you, Richie. That’s for the Alvin Marshes of this world. The Tom Rogans. Not you, never you.” 

And,  _ God _ , Richie wanted to believe her. He wanted to, but it had been a week since Eddie died and Richie didn’t think the wound would ever heal. Not like this. Not here. “Yeah,” he croaked. “‘Spose.”

“Do you think Eddie would ever think you deserved that?” she started. “Seriously, I mean. I’m sure he said it on occasion.”

“Well, we’ll never know, will we. Because he’s dead. Because we left -”

“ _ I know _ ,” she cut him off. “And he wouldn’t.” Richie chanced a look at her now.  _ Winter fire _ . She fixed him in her sights. “He loved you, Richie.”

“Don’t - Don’t say that,” he choked, voice wavering hardly above a whisper. She didn’t know what she was saying. How could she? Richie never told them. 

“He did. He loved you, and that’s why he tried to save you. Like how Ben saved me.”

Without any instruction from his brain, his hands came up to cover his face, as if trying to block out the very suggestion of the idea. He didn’t  _ want  _ Eddie to love him, not if he wasn’t here anymore. Shit.  _ Shit _ . His eyes were heating up. It had been a mistake to say it out loud, Bev couldn’t understand. None of them could ever understand. 

“I’m gonna,” he said, thickly, trying to blink his vision clear. “I’m gonna try and get some sleep.”

As he rolled onto his side, away from Bev, he heard her say, so quietly. “Think about it. Please. It’s a gift.”

A gift. 

In the long rocky space between waking and sleeping, Richie saw it all. Him, young again, telling Eddie just how he felt. Eddie, delighted, returning the sentiment. Running away to New York together, or California, or wherever,  _ anywhere,  _ just to be together. They never forgot each other. Never came back to Derry. Eddie lived, and lived, and lived. 

And in the space above, hovering over them, all-encompassing and ever watchful, the creature closed its eyes and dropped its head. Acknowledgment of the prayer that Richie could never utter.

♜

Derry was warm and sticky in that familiar way that was somehow so unique to Richie’s childhood memories. It was different now, of course, seeing it as an adult. He’d known Derry was a dead-end town even back in the eighties, but it had still held that glossy sheen of being his entire world. Now, even his favourite places seemed run down. Embarrassing, almost. Shameful. 

The five of them waited outside the old Aladdin. As Richie sipped his coffee he chuckled to himself. He thought, really, that they looked like some odd embodiment of the different stages of grief. 

The plan they’d formed over their makeshift breakfast was not one of their finest (but then, had any of them been?) and Richie had the distinct notion in his mind that each of them was just going through the motions somewhat. It all seemed so inevitable, he couldn’t be bothered to put up a fight. He’d given up giving up; the Losers Club wouldn’t let him. Ben stared up serenely at the pure white clouds above. Bill paced, gnawing at his bottom lip. Mike leaned against the brick wall near the alley, nodding and occasionally reminding them how, ‘They’d done this before, they could do it again’. As if Richie could fucking forget. And then Bev, a bookend to Ben, her legs crossed in long lines in front of her, smiling at the kids who cycled by.

“ _ Ah, de señors, dey are still here _ ,” came a familiar voice. “ _ And de señorita _ .” It cracked a little and Richie recalled with a grimace exactly how long it took for his voice to settle finally. 

“We are,” Mike said, sending over an award-winning smile to the young Losers winding their way down the road. Young Richie scrunched up his nose. Next to him, Eddie squared up, straightening his fanny pack.  _ Oh, no _ . 

“We’ve been thinking,” young Richie started. 

_ Oh, no _ , indeed.

“You have?” Bill replied, sounding dubious. Richie and Bev rose to their feet as the kids drew level with them. Young Bill and young Ben remained near the back, as if they wanted to distance themselves from whatever was about to come out of Richie’s mouth. 

“Yeah,” Eddie piped up. “We figured you guys will want to go find IT, right?”

“Because clearly none of us have learned anything,” Stan drawled at young Richie’s shoulder. Young Bev kicked his shin. The sun gleamed and bounced off the dull metal of the necklace charm hanging at her collarbone. It was one of those moonstone things - a dime a dozen, and worth less than that - set into the shape of a turtle. 

Richie snorted in spite of himself. 

“That’s right,” Bev said, eyeing Eddie with a fond smile. 

_ A gift. _

“We’ll help,” young Richie replied. “ _ If _ you tell us what we want to know about the future.”

Yep, that had ‘Richie Tozier’ written all over it, that plan did. Richie wondered what he’d pulled to get the others to agree with him on that one. Or, hell, actually, they were probably all interested, weren’t they? Even if they could see how horribly it would actually work out. 

Ben laughed, and the young Losers looked uniformly affronted. “Nice try, buddy.” Young Ben mouthed the word ‘buddy’, as if he’d never heard such language used before. “You want us gone, you help. Otherwise, stay out of trouble.”

For a second, Richie thought it had worked. The kids stared at Ben.  _ Well, would you look at that, Trashmouth Tozier respecting the authority of - _

“You’re not our parents,” teen Richie blurted out, cheeks flushed. “You can’t tell us what to do.”

Richie stepped off the sidewalk and clapped a hand on his younger self’s shoulder - Oh, that was weird - being on the receiving end of a Richie Tozier scowl. It wasn’t quite as cutting as he had always imagined it to be. “How about you think of us as your conscience?” he said. “Stay home, Richie,” he said, in a frankly quite poor imitation of Marlon Brando as Jor-el. “ _ Live as one of them. Give them the light to show the way. _ ”

A bright giggle burst from Eddie’s lips. Young Richie looked positively offended. 

“What?” Eddie defended. “You get better at your Voices. It’s a  _ compliment. _ ”

It took an alarming amount of self-control not to beam at the words leaving Eddie’s mouth. Instead, Richie swallowed and coughed, focusing on the traffic behind them. A passing car was blasting out ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ and Richie thought very seriously about just diving into the Kenduskeag then and there.

“I don't like it when you’re nice to me,” he heard his younger self mutter. 

Eddie grinned, leaning his upper body closer to him. “I wouldn’t get too upset, Trashmouth, I doubt it’ll happen again.”

Richie breathed. It was fine. Eddie couldn’t hurt him. He wouldn’t. But he’s so young, teenagers were accidentally cruel sometimes, weren't they?

_ And you’re a forty-year-old man, Richard. Get over yourself, and get through it. _

The unlikely looking group headed towards the scrapyard at a leisurely pace. If someone were feeling particularly forward, they might even describe it as hesitant. The journey through the sunshine was scored by the unrelenting chatter of Richie and Eddie who had rather heroically overcome their odd shyness of yesterday. 

“But where are they? Stan and Eds?”

“You must have some idea? Did you see us in Derry?”

“Why would the rest of us come and not them?”

“Are we not here together, or separately?”

“Is it deliberate, do you think?”

“Or, shit, part of IT’s plan? What if IT’s got us!?”

Though the adults - Richie’s mind glitched on the word a little, as he traced the footsteps of his youth,  _ literally _ \- gave a valiant attempt at rerouting the conversation to the actual plan, such as it was, the pair were not to be dissuaded. Richie half suspected that they would soon resort to just chanting, ‘Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!’ as they followed them down the road. Like some nightmare road trip come to life. 

“Y-you know, it’s going to happen to us anywuh-wuh-way, right?” young Bill spoke up, in what could pass as a perfectly reasonable tone. The houses on either side of the road were getting smaller and smaller as they approached Kansas Street, the traffic gradually thinning until they could’ve been the only people in the whole of Derry. “We might as well know n-n-now.”

“Sure,” Richie snorted, though he supposed the question wasn’t aimed at him. “Why go through a trauma once? That’s our motto, hey, Benny boy?” He ruffled young Ben’s hair, all light and fluffy underhand. Ben ducked his head and patted down his hair, stepping out of Richie’s reach.

Richie pouted. “Ben, why does little you hate me?” he asked, squinting over to where the older man was watching the exchange with a wry smile. 

“Come here,” he said, cocking his head. As soon as Richie complied, he pulled him into a headlock and whispered, “I’ve always hated you.”

“Sorry?” Richie gasped under the not-very-tight-at-all grip. He could hear the others laughing at them. “I wasn’t listening to what you were saying, I was too distracted by your biceps. Or are these triceps? I never -”

“Stop it!” someone yelled. Ben let him go. 

The glower seventeen-year-old Richie was sending him was nothing short of murderous.  _ Oh, that’s right. I know all your secrets. _ Richie glowered right back. He got the sense that this kid really didn’t like him. And, yeah, that tracked. Around them, the young Losers seemed utterly nonplussed. Richie cocked his eyebrow.  _ See what you did?  _ A rookie error on the kid’s part, to look so concerned. But maybe the guy just couldn’t help it. Maybe he was boiling over.

Into the silence, Bill offered, “Maybe we should.”

It took Richie a good few seconds to figure out what the hell he was talking about. Once he realised, though, a scowl to rival that of young Richie’s morphed across his features.

“Oh, Bill, just  _ shut up _ , man, alright?” he snapped. “Just shut  _ up _ .”

Distantly, young Bill called, rather impotently, “Hey.”

They’d stopped walking by now, spread out on the sidewalk and into the road. They’d fought like this before, Richie thought. Before IT had taken Bev. It was enough for him to loosen his shoulders where they’d sprung up towards his ears.

“We’re already changing history just being here, Richie,” Mike said, softly. “It’s not fair that we’re holding information back, just because they’re kids. They’ve -  _ We’ve _ been through it all, they can handle it.”

As Mike gestured, the teenagers shifted, no doubt trying to look as tough as possible. It didn’t really work. 

“But that’s what I’m saying!” Richie crowed. He turned to the others. “Am I the only one hearing this shit? It’s not because they’re kids, it’s because it’s an insane thing to know. It’s  _ insane _ . I wouldn’t want to know, and that’s me over there that you’re about to tell, so, surely what I say counts?”

“Of course it does,” Bev started, her voice just as soft as Mike’s. God, when had they started putting the kid gloves on around him?  _ Probably around the time he started talking about punishment and infinity and hell _ . “But, I think they’re going to find out, or they’ll work it out. If IT really is down there, really is behind all this, then, he’ll use it, won’t he? Better to prepare them.”

Richie pushed his glasses further up his nose and rasped, “I don’t think I’ll ever be prepared.”

Worrying the bracelet around her wrist, teenage Beverly shifted her weight from foot to foot. “We want to know, really,” she said, wide eyes looking up at Richie. He glanced at the older Bev next to him.  _ God _ . “We can - It can’t be any worse than you’re making it sound.”

“Besides,” Eddie added, and Richie could feel his eyes on him, but kept his own studiously at the tarmac below his feet. “It’s me and Stan that aren’t here, so - so we should get to decide. And we want to know.”

“Is that right, Stan?” Bev asked. “Do you want to know?”

All eyes turned to Stan, standing up straight, skin pale. His jaw flexed. “I already know,” he replied and Richie jolted. “I mean, I think I know. But, it would be good to be sure, in case -” he trailed off, frowning at the horizon, where the roadside gave away to farmland. “In case I’m wrong.”

How many times was Richie going to wonder how Stan had turned out? 

Bill let out a melodic laugh. “What happened to those two kids that didn’t want to go into the sewers to find Betty Ripsom, huh?” he said, looking up at the Losers with a kind of melancholy Richie was sure they wouldn’t understand.

“They killed a psycho clown,” Stan retorted, dry as ever. “It changes people.”

Richie snorted and muttered, “Not by much.”

“Tell us,” Eddie said. “Please, it’s - Otherwise you’re just using us, aren’t you? Like everyone else.”

And how could Richie argue with that? This Eddie, halfway through a growth spurt, eyes still too big for his head somehow, and a so clearly hopeful expression on his face. Like he was so sure that Richie wouldn’t treat him like that; like his mother always had done. Of course, he was right. Richie never would.

But he wasn’t fucking happy about it.

“Ah, shit. Shitty, fucking,  _ shit, _ ” he groaned, fists clenching as he squatted down on the sidewalk. “Hi-yo fucking silver, Big Bill.”

“Er, is he okay?” he heard young Mike ask in a concerned and vaguely perplexed voice.

“No,” Mike replied with a sigh. “But he’ll get over it.” 

Over his head, Bill sniffed. “Okay,” he said. “ _ Okay _ . We’ll tell you, b-but, just -” He cut himself off and Richie peered up at him, somehow detached from the scene along with his morbid curiosity. “It’s not necessarily your future. We’re chuh-changing it now. Maybe. I don’t know how this works, ruh-r-really.”

“Guys, are we sure -” young Ben started.

“ _ Yes _ ,” teen Richie snapped over him. 

Bill paused. Let out a breath. Started, “You’re - You - Y - Er, this is t-tough, um.” He licked his lips and Richie watched his gaze travel across the kids, wavering on Eddie. On Stan. “So, when Muh-Mike called everyone, Stan, y-you, um -” He grimaced. “Shit.”

Ben stepped out into the middle of the makeshift circle they’d formed. He ran his hand across this jaw, and -  _ Oh, he was going to do it, it was happening, he was going to - _

“You’re dead,” Ben said, in as gentle a way as anyone could say those words. “Both of you, you’re dead.” 

♗

Oh, hell. Was there a way to say it nicely? It was what Ben had been aiming for, when he worked his way to the front of the group. Bill had been floundering - so unlike Bill, but then, what about this situation was normal? - and Ben had thought he could do it, could break it to them gently, but then it had come out like that. Like, ‘You’re dead. Both of you.’ 

You idiot, Hanscom. 

There was a part of Ben, a small part, but one that niggled away at him nonetheless, that wondered whether any of this really,  _ truly _ mattered, anyway. 

Was any of this real? How could they ever know, for sure? Perhaps Ben never made it out of the clubhouse. But, then -  _ That _ hadn’t been real either, had it?

In any case, the startled silence from the teenagers - young adults, almost - felt real enough. If his momma taught him anything, it’s that being nice didn’t cost a thing. He wasn’t going to risk upsetting anyone just because he had a vague idea that it didn’t count. 

The Losers had had ideas like that before. 

“How?” Eddie asked, his fingers twitching around his fanny pack, but he didn’t pull out his inhaler.  _ Good for you, Eds. _ Of course, he knew for sure that  _ that _ didn’t matter. Hadn’t Eddie still carried that thing around with him in his forties anyway?

Ben stayed quiet. 

_ “How?” _ Eddie repeated. Though he glared, his lips trembled  _ just a little, _ and, geez, Ben was a complete ass, wasn’t he?

“It was in the sewers,” he said, raising his voice just a little to be heard over the clacking of a passing train. “In IT’s lair.”

Around them, the young Losers grimaced. Turned away. Dropped their gaze. The five of them who had lost Eddie already kept their eyes trained on him. 

“IT got me?” 

“You - You were really brave, Eddie.”

“It was my fault,” Richie said, voice rough from where he was still crouched on the sidewalk. His eyes were red when he looked up at Eddie and, not for the first time, Ben wondered how the hell he was holding himself together. Richie and Eddie, they’d been, maybe not like him and Bev, or - Well. Ben frowned.  _ Maybe _ not. 

Turning his eyes to the teenage Richie, just at Eddie’s shoulder, Ben caught a flash of something like terror in his face, before he spotted Ben watching him. The expression vanished without a trace. 

Jesus.  _ Richie _ . 

“I got caught in the deadlights,” Richie continued. “I - You got me out,  _ you saved me _ . Skewered the fucking thing, but it still got you.” He let out a breath and then, quietly, almost as if to himself, he said, “In the sewers.”

“What about Stan?” young Bill asked, voice full of edges. 

Ben grimaced. How to phrase it? How to force his mouth to form the words? 

Before he could fathom an answer, however, Stan himself barked, “No. Don’t tell me. I know.” His eyes were wide, so wide that Ben didn’t question  _ how  _ he knew, because of course he did. Of course. “I know how,” he continued, voice shaking a little. “Don’t tell the others.”

“Stanley,” Mike sighed, looking pained.

“ _ No. _ ”

“This is bullshit,” young Richie declared. Ben couldn’t be the only one that heard the whimpering voice of a child in his words. 

“Richie,” Bev started, but was ignored. 

“No, this is - It’s shit. It’s - Didn’t you even try?” he jeered. “Did you try to save him?”

_ No, Richie, don’t say that. You’re not that cruel. _

“Of course I fucking tried,” the older Richie replied. Ben had expected a yell. The tired, half-whisper that fell down to the ground instead, however, was so much worse.

“Richie, don’t -” Bev tried again, to one of them? Both of them? Who knew.

“He’s dead!” the teenager spewed. “Eddie’s - They’re both dead, and you weren’t even going to tell us? Who the fuck are you, man? You weren’t going to say anything, you were just going to let it happen again. I’m not going to let it, alright, I’m not you. I’m - We’ll save them -”

A strangled cry emanated from Stan then and, just for a second, Ben was back in the sewers in 1989, watching that creature latch on as Stan lay prone on the grimy floor. Blinking his way back into the present, he heard the thudding of Stan’s shoes as he ran away from the group. 

“S-stan!” Bill called at his retreating form. After just a heartbeat, both Bills went running down the road after him. Mike followed on their heels and, after a strained look at her Eddie and Richie, young Bev vanished as well, her hair fanning out in waves as she ran into the breeze.

Younger Ben, Ben noticed, hadn’t said a word. It wasn’t unusual, he often found himself on the quieter end of the spectrum in their little group, especially in those days - drawing attention to himself was not something he had ever been particularly keen on - but, still,  _ nothing. _ What was he thinking?

Richie - the one with longer, curling hair, summer freckled skin, and skinny ankles peeking out from above ratty shoes - returned to spewing out nonsense sentences. “ - no, but, it’s alright, because we can change it, like, like ‘Terminator’, or, no,  _ shit _ , that doesn’t work. But, right, like ‘Back to the Future,’ or ‘Bill and Ted’. We can  _ change _ it, Eds, so you won’t die, IT won’t get you, alright? I won’t let it. I just won’t get caught in the deadlights, I’ll never open my fucking eyes again, I’ll -”

In the strange, almost distorted quiet around the pair, Ben lowered himself down next to where young Ben and Mike had taken refuge on the sidewalk. 

“You okay there, um, Ben?” 

The boy nodded. Next to him, the younger Mike nudged his arm. 

“You sure?” Ben tried again.

“Uhuh, I - Just sad, isn’t it?” young him said, softly. Everyone had always told Ben that he was a gentle giant. He’d never really seen it that way, until now. “Only thirty years and two of us are gone,” the kid carried on. “And we don’t even know each other for most of that.”

“Yeah. It is sad,” Ben replied, feeling stupid. He remembered Richie crying in the quarry. Bev’s lips on his. “But it’s not all bad. There’s some good stuff as well.”

“Richie gets better at his Voices?” Mike piped up, a flicker of that dazzling smile of his, before it faded away. 

Ben smiled. “That’s it. Never give up, that’s the lesson.”

Behind them, just when the teenage Richie got started on how they had decades to work out how to avoid it, Eddie shot out, “Shut up, Richie!”

The boy stopped his incessant pacing, staring up at Eddie with burning eyes.

“Eds -”

“No, it’s fine. It’s fine, it’s okay. I mean -” Eddie turned to the remaining Ben and Bev with an almost pleading expression and Ben caught the minute whimper that left Bev’s lips at the sight. “We all die sometime, right?”

She sent him a watery shrug. After a moment, “You were great, Eddie,” she said. “You were - I wish you hadn’t died. I wish Stan hadn’t -” She sniffed. Sucked in a breath. “But you did. You were the one that showed us how to kill IT. Without you -” The end of the sentence seemed to get stuck in her throat.

“Without you, we’d all be toast,” Ben finished. 

Eddie took this in, nodding, though Ben wasn’t quite sure he’d really heard what the two of them said. “Yeah,” Eddie breathed, somehow muted. His eyes lingered on the older Richie for a second. The two of them shared a look - one that Ben couldn’t figure out - before Eddie returned his focus to the Richie by his side. “And, at least you didn’t die as well,” he said. “At least you’re okay. That’s - That’s something.”

The two of them shuffled closer to each other and Eddie reached out a hand to curl around the young Richie’s wrist. Watching that moment, the gentle curl of his fingers, Ben got the distinct impression that he shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t be watching. He coughed and turned his face away, spotting Bev and his young self, young Mike suddenly become very interested in the clouds, or the cracks in the road. Only Richie continued to stare, as if transfixed, at the two boys huddled together. 

“Let’s get to the scrapyard,” he said after several long moments, voice still sounding like he’d swallowed sandpaper. He rose to his feet and clapped his hands together. “We have a fucking clown to kill.”

“Better follow him,” Ben muttered, as Richie’s long legs carried him down the road. “He can move pretty fast when he wants.”

Young Ben laughed, as if they’d shared some kind of inside joke. With the others setting off around him, Ben recalled all the times that Richie had stalked ahead of the group in the Barrens, clearing the path for them. Perhaps Richie was more of a leader than he gave himself credit for. 

♜

“ _ Why, I do declare, _ ” teenage Richie said, surveying the looming piles of trash approaching along the horizon as they made their way down the dirt track road. “ _ A treasure trove, indeed. _ ”

The scrapyard hadn’t changed a bit, but then, Richie reminded himself, they were back in time. What was it with kids and trash? They’d hung out here all the time when they were younger, though by the scrunched up expressions on the teens’ faces, those days were already long gone. 

“Alright,” Ben announced, clapping his hands together. Richie shared a look with Bev; Ben always was his happiest when implementing a plan. “We stick together and gather as much as we can. Anything that looks like a weapon, looks like it could do some damage. This time we’re actually going to be prepared.” He mumbled the last part, aiming it at Richie and Bev. At least one of them was using their brain in this operation, all Richie could offer right now was a personal best for continuous internal screaming. 

“‘Be prepared’?” Mike's voice sounded oddly ill-suited for the setting, but no less welcomed for it. The seven of them all turned as if in a dance to see the other’s walking down the path between two towers of junk. “I’ve got just the man.”

“Stan,” Eddie chirped, his whole face lighting up. “You came back.”

“Of c-course he did,” Bill said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder. “He’s a Loser.”

“I hate this place,” Stan himself replied, toeing at what looked like the remains of an old couch cushion. “It stinks.” 

“You’ll fit right at home then,” young Richie calls, clearing the space between them in two long strides and ruffling Stan’s hair until the other boy smiles at him. It seemed that the short walk to the scrapyard was enough to clear the kid’s mood. 

_ Yeah, or at least, long enough for him to reign himself back in _ .

It was dull work, scanning the miscellaneous rubbish that people threw away; the kind of work that had your mind drifting. Maybe due to this mental absence, it wasn’t until the last minute that any of them spotted the old supervisor, Mandy Fazio peering out at them from behind a broken-down refrigerator. 

“Whatchu doin’, sonny?” the man barked, causing them all to jump. At the far left, young Bev threw the old shovel she was in the middle of unearthing several feet in front of her. 

Being the nearest, Fazio craned his neck up at Mike, who backed away.

“We’re collecting,” he said. “Er, recycling. You know, saving the planet.”

The man narrowed his eyes. 

“Ain’t you a little old for that?”

In unison, all the teenagers turned to the adults.

“Er,” Bev started. 

Bill cleared his throat. “It’s a-a-a -”

“Community outreach project,” Richie interrupted, shrugging his shoulders in what he hoped was an ‘Aw shucks, mister’ manner. “Someone has to take the little darlings under their wing, isn’t that right?”

The man frowned, scratching at his chin. Evidently deciding that to question it wasn’t worth his time, Fazio muttered, “Ayuh, you should know better, then. You head off, now, alright?”

They all nodded, watching while the old man’s fragile limbs carried him back out of sight. 

“Well,” Richie huffed. “He was a real delight.”

“I think I remember him,” Ben murmured. 

“Old Fazio?” young Ben laughed. “Sure, he chased me and Bill out of here a dozen times.”

Bill hummed. “Come on then,” he said. “He’ll c-come back, I’m sure. Let’s all find something and guh-guh-get going.”

With a chorus of grumbles, they followed Big Bill’s lead. 

Perhaps naturally, they seemed to break off in their pairs. Without realising, after a few minutes of focused searching - Richie was determined to find something that wasn’t sharp or javelin-shaped to arm himself with - he looked up to discover that teenage Richie was hunched over, barely five feet from him.

He tapped his fingers against his thigh for a few long moments, listening to the somewhat disgusting sounds of the others rummaging through the junk piles. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, hesitantly. A strange feeling of hysteria washed over him when young Richie looked up at him through his long tangles of hair. “Sorry I yelled earlier,” he finished, a little stiltedly.

Young Richie shrugged, continuing to turn over the debris around him. “It’s cool. I yelled first.” He stood up, almost as tall as Richie was now, just  _ lankier. _ “How do you do that?” he asked, cocking his chin towards Richie. “With the Voices, how’d you learn?”

With a snort, Richie replied, “Perseverance, dude. You just got to learn not to listen to anyone who tells you you’re crap - and they will. But I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.” He wrinkled his nose up, casting a quick look around to make sure they were alone. The nearest other Loser was Eddie, picking his way through the contents of an abandoned pram with a look of utter horror, but well out of hearing distance. Richie shuffled closer. “Hey, you know, it gets better,” he said, gently.

“What?” his teen self replied. If Richie didn’t know better, he would have believed the play of ignorance.

“The way that you feel -”

“I don’t feel any  _ way _ ,” the boy snapped, casting his own startled look around them. 

“Sure. I just mean, that, generally, people are cool with that kind of thing now.”

“Yeah?” he croaked. “How come you’re still keeping it a secret, then?”

That stopped Richie in his tracks. His heartbeat played its rapid rhythm in his ear. “How do you know I am?” he asked, voice wavering much more than he’d really like.

“I know you too, right?” Young Richie sent him what could have been a smile, or a smirk - Richie wasn’t entirely sure - and stooped down to pick up a battered old baseball bat. “Nice,” he said, whistling. He winked at Richie and walked away. 

_ Teenagers _ , Richie thought, sucking at his teeth.  _ They’re the fucking worst.  _

~

Altogether too soon, for the fourth time in his life, Richie made his way down Neibolt Street with a weight sinking in his stomach. 

“We should get season tickets to this place,” he said, with little enthusiasm. “Would save a fortune.”

A few of the younger Losers chuckled, but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it. The sun shone down on the cracked road and Richie kept his gaze on the empty train lines at the end of the road. Eddie used to like watching the trains, he recalled, before IT. Before the leper. Richie glanced at him now to find him also eyeing the tracks, one hand on his fanny pack. A beam of sunlight caught on his stupid digital watch, and Richie had to look away.

_ Why was it always so sunny when it came time to face IT? Shouldn’t it be like in the movies? Rain and lightning; flashes in the dark? _

Bursts of the darkness in the sewers sprung in his mind; cold and wet and slimy. He shivered. No. Sunshine was just fine, actually.

The symphony of their combined footsteps filled the air around them, until young Mike asked, almost shyly, “Will it work?” He gripped the wrench in his hands tighter. “Imagining, I mean? We’re not kids anymore, it might not be the same.”

“It’ll work,” Mike reassured. Richie scoffed -  _ where have I heard that one before, Mikey? _ \- but the hurt look Mike sent him had him shrugging an apology. “It  _ will _ work,” the other man repeated. “It's a two-pronged attack. Twice as effective. You guys believe, believe as hard as you can, and we’ll,” he trailed off. 

“We’ll bully,” Bev added. 

That, at least, got a few more smiles. 

Any dregs of levity that remained were drained out of them, however, when 29 Neibolt Street came into view.  _ This fucking house _ . To see it standing upright again -  _ Shit.  _ Richie had to swallow around the bile rising in his throat. This Goddamn, fucking house took everything from him; his childhood, his memories, his friends, his - his - his  _ Eddie. Oh, God _ , Eddie’s body would be under there forever.

_ They’ve already done this. How was this house still fucking here!? _ It wasn’t fair. Stan had slit his own wrists, Eddie had bled out in the dirt, Richie had fucking murdered someone. Surely they’d suffered enough? Bev had suffered, right? Mike had stayed in this shitty town for forty years. Bill’s brother had been murdered, that kid had been killed in front of him, Ben had been tormented by bullies every Goddamn day. They’d had enough.  _ Enough.  _

But this evil old house remained. 

“A-anyone what to say s-something?” Bill asked, almost brightly, and Richie really did want to punch him, just a little. 

“No, let’s just - Let’s just get it over with,” Stan responded, stiff and unrelenting.

Beside him, Eddie took a pull of his inhaler. Both of them had taken on the colour of day-old porridge. 

“You hear that, Stan?” young Richie asked, raising a hand to cup his ear while he cocked his head. 

_ Oh, shit.  _ Was it IT? Coming out to pick them off early? Richie, along with both Bens and Eddie, took a few stumbling steps backwards.

“No. What?” Stan asked in alarm, head jerking.

“In the trees. It’s a greater crested spoonbill.”

Everyone slumped. Young Bill groaned. “That’s not a real bird,” Stan said, attempting a scowl, but clearly relieved. 

“Sure it is, I just heard it. Is it green or red, I can’t remember,” young Richie pouted. “You’ll have to let me know.” 

Young Bev snorted, knocking young Richie’s shoulder as she passed him on the way to the door. She pushed the teenage Bill forward with her and, all of a sudden, they were all marching up the rickety wooden steps. 

Bringing up the rear, Richie heard his younger self say, quietly, “Eds, you stay near me, alright?” 

Eddie nodded, brown eyes wide, but didn’t say anything else. Not even, ‘Don’t call me Eds.’

_ Alright, Richie. Once more unto the breach. You’ve got to get out of this false paradise. _

Inside was worse. So much worse. It was unsettling, to say the least, seeing the house in, well, not  _ pristine _ condition by any means, but in its restored setting. He deliberately avoided the front corner where, all those years ago that missing person poster had got him so good. 

_ “Memory _ ,” he sang, almost without meaning to. “ _ All alone in the moonlight.” _

At last, the older Losers properly laughed. 

“I didn’t know you liked musicals, Rich,” Bev whispered. 

“Oh, Beverly Marsh, you would have been all over me in college.”

Young Richie snapped his head towards him at that, but it was ignored in favour of Bill’s jibe, “Did you guh-go to college, Trashmouth?”

“What’d you major in?” Bev added. “‘Dick jokes and Misogyny’?”

Channelling his best McConaughey, Richie raised his hands. “ _ Alright, alright, alright.  _ I already told you, I don’t write my own -” A solid mass of teenager blocked his path and Richie bounced into young Mike’s back. “Hey,” he muttered. “What’s the holdup?”

“You were probably thinking of a grebe, Richie,” Stan said, oh so quietly. He was hesitating at the door to the basement, staring down at the steps that disappeared into darkness. “Great crested grebe. They have a kind of red-y brown plumage.”

“Yeah, that was it,” young Richie agreed, amiably.

Eddie’s voice was surprisingly strong when it came. “Maybe you should go first, Bill. Big Bill, I mean.  _ Big _ Big Bill.” He licked his lips, blinking at Bill as the other teens nodded. 

“Sure,” Bill said. “S-sure.”

It was slow progress, all of them lining up by the well, waiting their turn to descend into the sewers. Richie’s shoulders ached from how tightly he’d been holding them. Every sound, every flicker in the shadows stole his breath away from him. 

It wasn’t until he was shimmying his way down the rope that he noticed it. The creature. Not it’s presence, exactly, but the feeling that it - the  _ something _ \- was watching them. Watching over them, swimming above and below. Something that wasn’t Pennywise.

_ FORWARD _ , the voice said.  _ FORWARD AND DOWN AND ONWARDS. _

_Further up and further in_ , Richie thought, almost out of nowhere. A distant memory fluttered to the forefront of his mind, of his mother reading to him as a child. And, unlike before, unlike in the dream, Richie didn’t feel alone. He wasn’t alone. He had the Losers and _this_. The Turtle.

“Do you guys feel that?” he said, a little strained. 

Truthfully, he’d been expecting confusion and maybe a little derision - he was Richie Tozier, after all. Instead, though, Ben nodded at him as he helped him clamber into the little side tunnel. 

“The Thing?” he said. 

Eddie startled where he was still clinging to the rope. “IT?”

“No, not IT,” Richie reassured, reaching out to grab him. “Something else.” He looked at Ben. “Something good?”

Nodding, Ben breathed, “Yeah. Something good.”

♜

It was funny, being back in the sewers. Well, no, scrap that. It wasn’t  _ funny _ , not in the slightest, but Richie felt a distinct lack of fear within the group. And  _ that _ was funny. Odd, even. Maybe it was because nothing spooky had happened up in the house. No human head-crabs, no puppet-boys, not even any locked doors. 

All of it was a good sign, right? All pointing towards IT being asleep? There’d been no upturn in the number of murdered or missing kids in town, no enforced curfew, no worried parents. If IT really was in  _ hibernation _ , or whatever the fuck space clowns did when they weren’t on a child-murdering rampage, then this would be easy. Or,  _ easier _ . 

They just had to find him.

Richie gripped his mallet tighter.

Even without that underlying terror, wading thigh-deep through the greywater of Derry’s great and good was, at the least, wholly unpleasant. 

When the bloated corpse of an absurdly large rat floated by him, Richie grimaced, turning his face away.

“You know,” he commented. “There really has to be something more wholesome we could do as a group activity. Paintballing. Bowling. Hell, I’d take fucking pottery class at this point.”

“What’s wrong with pottery class?” Ben piped up from somewhere in the middle of their little walking bus chain.

“Oh, Haystack, I love you, man. Don’t ever fucking change.”

“W-we can go paintballing afterwards, Richie,” Bill called. Richie couldn’t see the quirk of his smile, it was far too dark, but he knew it was there. “If you really want.”

Something slimy dripped onto his head. He winced, attempting to shake it off. “I appreciate the optimism, Billy.”

“Don’t call me ‘Billy’,” both Bills said at the same time, echoing in harmony off the dirty sewer walls. 

Immediately in front of him, Mike chuckled. “Isn’t that Eddie’s line?”

“So it is.” Richie turned his face to call over his shoulder, “Don’t you worry, Spaghetti is still my favourite.”

To his delight, Eddie responded immediately. “No!” the boy snapped, over the sounds of splashing. “We’ve reached an agreement.”

“I’m allowed one ‘Spaghetti’ a day,” young Richie agreed, his voice emanating from the darkness beyond Richie’s vision.

He watched the outline of Eddie’s head as he nodded. “And he used it this morning,” the boy said, primly. 

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” Richie laughed, so suddenly he almost choked on it. “The Great Spaghetti Ration of ninety-three! I can’t believe I forgot about that.” He raised his voice towards the kids at the rear. “It’s a rough patch, pal, but you get through it.”

There was time to hear a few cut off snorts of laughter before Bill’s voice interrupted with a, “Shit. Which way is it again?”

The line came to an uneasy stop at the foot of a crossroads. Small tunnels sprouted off on either side of them, resting at almost chest height. Water - Richie was calling it water in his head, he did not need to think too much about what it  _ actually  _ was - poured out from both at alarming speeds into their main artery tunnel. 

“Right,” Bev declared confidently.

“No, it was right into that side tunnel thing,” Ben added.

Bev sent him a baffled look. “I mean, this looks pretty side tunnel-like to me,” she said, waving her piece of piping in the air around her.

“It all looks the same,” Mike sighed heavily.

Richie opened his mouth to say something like, ‘Oh, well, I guess IT lives to snooze another day,’ or, ‘Just how I always wanted to die, starving and surrounded by shit,’ when Eddie cut him off.

“It’s left,” the small teen chimed in.

“Huh?” The collection of adults turned in his general direction, squinting in the dark. 

“Left,” Eddie repeated. He shifted. “We’re aiming for the cistern, right?”

Bill let out a small noise, like he was learning something new. “Okay,” he said. He pouted, nodded, and gripped the side of the tunnel leading to the left. “Left it is.”

The journey seemed to take so much longer than it had done before. Richie could only assume it was due to the absence of adrenaline running through his veins.  _ Why was he so calm? _ By the time they made it out of the sewer system and down into the rocky caverns below (with Ben and Mike offering several words of reassurance to get the kids down that fucking ominous-as-heck hatch), Richie was positively serene. 

Bill, however, was a different story. It wasn’t fear that powered him; he didn’t seem scared, but, almost,  _ excited _ . Like he couldn’t wait to get there. Several times Mike called at him to slow down, told him they didn’t want to lose him down there, but it didn’t go in. As the group of them crawled through the long opening into IT’s lair, Bill was nothing but a pair of shoes in the distance. 

What a place. What a horrid place. So cold. So quiet. So lonely.

_ Eddie. _

Richie’s memory was so clear, he could see the blood, could  _ see  _ his jacket where he’d pressed it into Eddie’s bleeding chest. He pressed his eyes shut,  _ just for a second _ .

“ _ Fucking - _ ”

Richie heard the yell and the rumble of something falling, and then the echoing splash, so loud and  _ final _ .

“That better not have been fucking Bill,” he said, lowly, in the second of silence in which the rest of the Losers stared at each other, wide-eyed. 

They scrambled forward.

“Bill!”

Off to the right the rock dropped down into a sunken cavern below. Richie could make out Bill’s head, he thought, in the dim light reflected in the fast-moving waters. He could hear him, definitely, coughing and spluttering beneath the roar of water pouring in above him. 

“Damn it,” Richie grunted, dropping down so his cheek was squashed into the rock face. “I can’t reach him.” He squinted down again. Bill’s spluttering had quietened down.  _ Jesus _ .

“Does s-someone always have t-to die?” young Bill moaned, staring down at the drop.

“Nobody died the first time,” young Richie reminded him.

Through gritted teeth, Ben hissed. “ _ Nobody’s dying this time.  _ We just need to - Hell. Is there another way in?”

Bev let out a shallow sob, fingers digging into the rock edge. “I don’t know. Bill?  _ Bill! _ ”

“I could do it.”

Richie spun around, staring, open-mouthed at Eddie. “ _ What? _ ”

“I'm the smallest,” Eddie said, skin pale beneath his freckles. “I could squeeze through.”

_ “Eddie _ ,” young Richie whined, and Richie tended to agree. 

“Are you mad?” he asked. What in the hell was this kid thinking? Had he not been listening before when they’d told him about dying down here?

“We need to get to him, he’s going to  _ drown _ down there. Bill can’t drown!” Eddie’s wide eyes flicked to the young Bill, standing above them, his arm stretched across the gap to the opposite wall. He was grey.

“Nobody is doing any noble shit, alright, not on my watch,” Richie ground out.  _ This wasn’t happening. This was not going to happen. Not again.  _ “Just - just -”

“Take your jackets off,” young Ben said, suddenly. The group paused. 

“What?” Mike hesitated.

“Take them off!” the teen repeated, already pulling his arms out of his sweater sleeves. “We’ll make a rope.”

“Y-yes! Yes, do it,” young Bill said and, almost immediately, everyone was moving. “Now, fast.”

Richie had one arm free of his jacket, with a dozen thoughts whirling through his head -  _ Would this work? What if Bill was hurt, could he even pull himself out? What would they do if Bill - if Big Bill - if -  _ when his inner panic was cut short.

“Where the fuck is Stan?” came young Bev’s voice, like a beacon through the fog. Her hands were white-knuckled around the fabric of her denim jacket.

“Stan?” Ben asked, lifting his head to give the small ledge they were all crowded around a once over. Richie following his gaze. No Stan. Not in the shadows, not near the ledge, not further down towards the lair. Nowhere.

“Oh, shit,” Bev breathed out, voice wavering. 

Immediately, the kids rose up, stumbling over the unsteady ground. “ _ Stan, _ ” young Bill called loud over the rushing water.

“Stanley!” 

“Hey, Stan,” young Mike yelled in a bellowing echo. “Where are you?” 

“Stan, dude, get back -”

A splash from below caught Richie’s attention and he jerked his body back down to the rock face, terrified that he’d see Stan trapped down there too.  _ How could they have brought Stan down here? Or Eddie? After what happened before, they were playing with fire.  _

His eyes took a second to adjust. And for a second, that was what he saw; Stan, arms flailing in the rapid water alongside Bill’s still body. But then it morphed. It changed into something new. 

Stan - Stanley Uris,  _ Stan the Man _ \- his arm wrapped around Bill’s chest, dragging him below the rock ceiling and out of sight. 

“What the -” Richie muttered under his breath. He rushed back down the cavern, the others calling after him, back in the direction that Stan had been swimming. Somewhere, there must be something, somewhere around here - Ah!

“Guys, come over here!”

The Losers stampeded towards him as he reached out into the small pool, hidden in the inky blackness of the winding rocky path. The shadow of two bodies come closer and closer to the surface, lit ominously (or was it a comfort?) from underneath. 

Bill broke the surface first, gasping for breath, and Richie - along with Ben and Mike - dragged him up the rough, steep bank.

“Bill, you complete -” 

Ben didn’t finish his sentence, instead, making a small noise in his throat, between a laugh, a sob, and a growl. He pulled Bill closer, gripping him in his arms. 

Behind them, Stan was being helped out of the pool by young Mike and young Richie, curls flattened against his scalp. 

“You’re a lucky shit,” Richie said, turning to him with the scalding air of a relieved parent. Stan smiled at him, wet and shivering. “A lucky shit,” he repeated, laughing now. Would it be appropriate to hug him? Probably not. Thankfully, the kids had that under control, burying Stan in a pile of limbs. 

“Well,” Stan said, once he was given room to breathe again. “Now I know how I’m going to die, opens everything else up, right?”

“That,” Mike said in a breathy laugh. “Is  _ not  _ how it works.”

“I know.” Stan shrugged. “Still, a good way to psyche myself up though.”

At Richie’s side, Bill pushed himself up. “Thuh-thuh- _ thanks _ , Stan,” he said, voice raspy. “Boy, am I g-glad you’re here.”

Stan smiled again, eyes thinning where his cheeks bunched up. 

It’s a nice sight; Stan smiling, surrounded by the rest of the Losers, huddled close. Richie didn’t get to enjoy it for long, however, as a second later his limbs began to feel as if they were made of lead. 

“What -” he thought he started to get out before his vision tunnelled, reduced to a pinprick, and finally nothing. Then, he’s falling. Not onto the hard, rough surface of the cavern, but down and down and down until he found himself standing, upright, blinking rapidly. 

_ What the fuck. _

In a situation such as this, Richie would have normally expected some sense of terror. He’d had to battle a god-like interdimensional being on several occasions by now, but here, in this nowhere place, Richie couldn’t feel much of anything. 

Around him, the space was - 

_ What  _ was it? 

He narrowed his eyes, attempting to focus. There was a vague idea in the back of his mind that he was still beneath Derry, still in IT’s lair, but at the same time everywhere else. There was no colour, so sense of up or down, no cold or warmth or scent or sound. He just existed. 

And that was fine. 

Spread on either side of him were dark shapes, maybe. Shadows? Imprints? Richie’s brain was moving slowly, as if through treacle. He couldn’t settle his mind to them, couldn’t tell how many there were, or  _ what _ they were, but, again, it was fine. They wouldn’t hurt him. They were friends.

_ RICHIE TOZIER,  _ the Turtle said. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t all. Underneath those words, Richie heard others, as they pulsed inside him. He heard,  _ BILL DENBROUGH  _ and  _ BEVERLY MARSH,  _ heard  _ BEN HANSCOM _ and  _ MIKE HANLON _ . He heard  _ EDDIE KASPBRAK _ .

_ Did they hear his name, too? _ he wondered.  _ Wherever they were? _

Richie didn’t startle at the voice. With unfounded certainty, he believed that it would be physically impossible to be surprised in this void. It was the Turtle, of course it was. He’d been waiting. 

_ What the fuck am I seeing here?  _ Richie said. Or, thought. Maybe they were interchangeable. 

_ I AM MATURIN. _

_Well, hola my good reptile friend_ , Richie greeted the Turtle. Maggie Tozier raised a polite son, after all. 

It was a little frustrating - but not much, nothing was much of anything, really - that Richie couldn’t  _ see _ the creature. Like one of those magic eye puzzles that used to have Richie going cross-eyed half the time while waiting at the dentist, he could both see Maturin while at the same time kept losing him in the nothingness of the space before him. 

A blink of an eye the size of the moon. 

The swish of a flipper that could move mountains. 

A flash of shell, its rivets as deep as canyons.

_ WE ARE FRIENDS, THOUGH WE WILL NOT SPEAK WITH EACH OTHER AGAIN. _

_ Well, that’s alright. You know what they say, ‘True friends are always together in spirit.’ _

_ I HAVE BEEN SLEEPING. _

Richie wondered if the Turtle could see him nodding.  _ Can you see me nodding? _

_ DREAMING. _

_ I don’t think he’s listening. _

_ IN MY DREAM YOU OVERCAME GREAT FEAR. _

_ Clearly  _ he _ didn’t have Maggie Tozier for a mother.  _

_ I WISH TO REPAY THIS DEBT. _

_ Imagine, summoning someone into your existential nowhere world by, what, throwing them sideways back into their own personal history, then dragging them down into the very worst place conceivable, only to pluck them up and plonk them into this age-of-aquarius, zen bubble, and  _ then _ not even listening to what they said to you?  _

_ Were all turtles like this? _

_ I OFFER YOU A CHANCE. _

_ Huh? Oh, right. A chance, that was good. To what?  _

_ TO CHANGE. _

_ Uhuh, sure. Well, I’ve been needing to do that for a while. I was already thinking about writing my own stuff. Maybe I could take a left turn into acting, loads of comedians do that, don’t they? Look at Jim Carrey, or Bill Murray, or Goddamn, Jonah Hill for Christ’s sake. _

_ TO GROW. _

_ Okay, yeah, fair enough. Maybe I could do with some of the ‘growing as person’ schtick. I could come out! Come out to the world, easy breezy. I’d been worried about that, hadn’t I? Why had I been so worried? There was so much to worry about, out there in the world.  _

_ TO LIVE AS A DREAM. _

_ Oh, well, of course. Living the dream. That was - that was, well, the  _ dream _! What is my dream? To get to keep my friends. To live my life the way I want it. To save Stan. To go back and rip that razor out of his hands and hold him close and promise him that he never has to be scared again. To save Eddie. To make up for the twenty-seven years we missed each other. To have told him how I felt, before his body went cold and pale.  _

_ To have Eddie tell me he loves me back. _

_ WILL YOU TAKE IT? _

_ Will I take it? Are you a fool? Of course I’d jump at the chance to live out my dream. Unless - Is this some kind of monkey-paw situation? Because I don’t want to have to house a zombie Stan or zombie Eddie in my spare room after their wives kick them out for rotting over the new carpet. _

_ WHAT I OFFER? _

_ Wow, still ignoring me, huh? Sure, I’ll take the chance. I could get used to a zombie Eddie anyway if I really had to. _

_ YOU MUST UPHOLD YOUR OATH. _

The Turtle came into focus again, for longer this time, and Richie let himself be mesmerised by the slow movement of its flippers as it swam through the thick space a thousand miles away, right in front of him. 

_ I did,  _ he thought.  _ We all did, we all came back, didn’t we? _

It was the strangest thing, but Richie felt his eyes spill over with tears. They ran in rivulets down his cheeks, dropping into the nothingness of space. 

_ What do you mean? What oath? Is this the reason the five of us were flung through time? Is there another oath? I don’t understand, Maturin, please! _

The air around Richie moved, like the Turtle was pressing closer, though he still seemed impossible to reach. Back in his dream, when he was floating in the lake, Richie had got the sense that the creature was saying something, only he couldn’t understand it. That same feeling engulfed him now, as he existed in the nothing space. The shadows on either side of him flickered. 

_ What are you trying to say? Help me.  _

He squeezed his eyes shut. Or, at least, he tried.  _ Focus, Richie. Focus. _ As much as he fought, though, he couldn’t bring the words any closer, couldn’t name that feeling, that  _ truth _ that the Turtle was telling him.

Eventually, its voice getting quieter and quieter, the Turtle spoke again so that Richie could understand. 

_ UPHOLD THE OATH, RICHIE TOZIER. _

_ BILL DENBROUGH. _

_ BEVERLY MARSH. _

_ BEN HANSCOM. _

_ MIKE HANLON. _

_ EDDIE KASPBRAK _ .

Richie’s shuddered as a jolt ran through his body, like stopping at the bottom floor in an elevator. He blinked, Stan’s young, smiling face staring back at him.

The grin was soon replaced with a considered look, as if the teen had just encountered a puzzle that he couldn’t quite solve. 

_ Well, that was a fucking trip. _

“Alright,” he called out, eyes on the older Losers, hoping he wasn’t imagining the equally misplaced looks on their faces. “So, did anyone else just have a full-on hallucination about a giant talking turtle, or was that only me?”

Teen Bev guffawed. “What?”

Behind her, however, adult Bev was staring at Richie with wide eyes. “Maturin,” she whispered. 

Richie dropped his head into his hands. “Awesome,” he said, voice muffled. “Is this better or worse than a space clown?”

♜

They settled on better. 

“S-s-so, it’s not IT, thuh-then? Who b-brought you guys here?”

Having made a home in the cavernous path, Richie shrugged at young Bill who was pacing up and down the middle of the cave with an expression that Richie found overly serious on such a teenage face.

“I guess,” he replied. “I mean, it’s what it sounded like.”

“Yeah,” Ben added. The other man had been more contemplative after his visit to the twilight zone, though had perked up more after talking it through. “That’s what it felt like, too, you know. Did you guys get that?” A scattering of nods. “Like, I knew for certain that IT wasn’t a problem for us now. We didn’t have to worry about him. Just the oath.”

“The oath.” Mike frowned. “I still don’t get it. We promised to come back if IT returned, and we did. We got IT. What is there left to do?”

“I mean, I don’t know about what there’s left to do,” young Richie offered. He failed miserably at juggling two loose rocks he’d picked from the path, the sound of them hitting the floor echoing loudly. “But I can tell you what we don’t need to do anymore.”

“What?” Eddie asked, squinting up at him from where he was sat scrunched next to young Mike.

“Deal with mister fucking chuckles down here.”

There was a pause. 

“Geez,” young Mike said, smile suddenly blinding. “You’re right.”

“It sometimes happens.”

Eddie rose to his feet. “Well, what the fuck are we still doing down here, then? This place gives me the creeps.”

The kids had a point. Richie clapped his knees. “Well, alrighty then. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Young Bev snorted. “Sure thing, Dad.”

“You know,” Richie wagged a finger at her. “In the future, that’s a compliment.”

“Let’s stick a pin in that one, shall we,” Mike chimed in, smirk barely hidden at all. 

The twelve of them headed back the way they came, all in one piece and with smiles on their faces. Richie only paused for a moment to wonder why he didn’t feel more surprised. 

Turtles, he supposed. 

“Eh-eh-Eddie, w-where are you taking us?” young Bill asked after the long climb back up into the sewers. They’d let Eddie take the lead, the rest of them more than confident in his ability to navigate them out. Now that he looked around, though, Richie was sure they were in a part of the sewer system he hadn’t seen before. “I don’t think this is the way we c-came.”

“Out,” Eddie called back to him.

“Illuminating, thank you,” Ben muttered, marching onwards.

“Strange isn’t it,” Bev started to say. “Leaving this place without having to battle anything to the -”

An echoing yell from the side tunnel ahead of them cut her off, and they all stumbled to a halt.

Stan glared at her. “You had to say it, didn’t you?” he sighed. “You jinxed it.”

Bev grimaced as they fanned out, gripping their makeshift weapons, ready to charge against whatever it was coming for them down in the depths underneath Neibolt.

“I knew I heard -”

Richie’s whole body froze at the sound of the voice. His heart beating double time, legs like jelly and his palms suddenly sweating, he watched as a person dropped down into their tunnel with a heavy splash. 

Not just any person.

Eddie Kaspbrak. 

Dirty and angry and so very, very alive. 

“Where in the  _ hell  _ have you motherfuckers been?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive the slightly brushed over characterisation for some of the kid!Losers … I got halfway into this chapter before it dawned on me that twelve/thirteen characters was Too Many, but I wasn’t gonna kill anyone off! We’re about bringing people back in this household.
> 
> [tumblr masterpost](https://missberrycake.tumblr.com/post/633167580896624640/the-king-is-gone-by-missberrycake-chapter-1)


	3. The Circle Starts Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who has two thumbs and is back in lockdown! Good news, though - it does mean that the remaining chapters will probably be up sooner than we all thought. Thank you to everyone who’s been reading/listening as we go - I’m really enjoying your comments!
> 
> A warning for this chapter for the use of a homophobic slur and teenagers being, like, deliberately mean to each other.

_ “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous _

_ Here we are now, entertain us.” _

\- Nirvana,

‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

* * *

_ "No one who dies in Derry really dies." _

\- Stephen King,

'IT'

* * *

♔

It hurt, Eddie recognised, absently. Dying.

When he was a kid, Eddie had never really experienced pain, not until the time he fell through the ceiling of the old Neibolt house. That pain had been white and hot and sharp; a relief, almost, from the creeping fear that had wormed its way through his whole body from the moment they’d crossed the threshold. 

It had been in that moment, scrambling across the dirty kitchen floor, that a range of truths had made themselves known to Eddie. Those truths had mingled in the hours afterwards with a different kind of fear. Not the fear that came with IT, that visceral,  _ loud _ fear. No. No, this fear had been insidious,  _ unrelenting _ ; the fear of his mother, the fear of other people, of what they might think, what they might  _ do _ .

He’d forgotten that all, of course. 

Now, with the heavy, pulsing pain emanating from his chest, weaving and curling and gripping at the rest of him, those truths came tumbling back.

For the first time since he was a kid, he could see it all so clearly. The clouds of fear and expectation and duty passed. All that was left was Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak. Just him. Just him and -

_ It hurt. _

He coughed, breath getting caught in his throat, more blood bubbling over his already stained lips. Distantly, through the dark of the cavern, he could see the others closing in on Pennywise. Their voices echoed powerfully around the chamber. 

_ They were going to do it. They really were. They were going to kill that clown once and for all.  _

_ I wish I could stay to see it.  _

His breathing was slowing now, shallow and weak. He didn’t have much longer, he knew. He just - He just wished - 

It was so clear now, he didn’t want to die without saying it. It wasn’t fair, but what could he do about it now? He’d been too scared for too long to even see it. 

_ That fucking clown. _

The cold crept into his bones. He couldn’t see much anymore. Their voices, though, were still there. Faint, but still. Eddie focused on that, in his last moments. His friends. That was something, he supposed. They’d found each other again. They were together. It was just a shame -

Eddie’s head rolled forward, his final thought running through his mind like a muffled dream. The Losers loved him. He loved them. It was just a shame he never - 

~

He was at the quarry, the cool water of the lake soothing his aching body. 

“Guys?” he called, treading water in the dark. His voice echoed back at him.  _ “Guys!”  _

Nothing. 

“Richie?” 

The crickets chirped, water lapping at the bank. He was alone. Eddie had always hated being alone. 

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, pushing himself off in a front crawl towards land. 

Instead of gaining ground, however, the safety of the rocks only moved further and further away. Like Eddie was walking up a downwards escalator, running and running as fast as he could, but never moving forward. 

His muscles weakened, pain burst in his chest, and his throat closed up. 

_ No _ , he thought.  _ It wasn’t meant to be like this. _

Above him, the sky itself seemed to move. Except, that wasn’t the sky, was it? There weren’t any stars. No, it was more like ... more like the underbelly of a great, floating  _ turtle  _ -

Eddie gasped awake, light flashing behind his eyelids, his rapid breathing echoing against the walls of the cavern. 

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” he wheezed, sucking in air. 

The wet walls of the alcove Richie had laid him in glistened around him.  _ Fuck.  _ He was still here, underneath fucking Neibolt. Underneath the sewers. What - 

He jerked, hands clasping at his chest and,  _ shit _ , he was in one piece. There was still that horrid tang of blood stinging his nostrils, still the sticky wetness against his hands, caught in the grooves of his palms, still the tattered hole in the middle of his t-shirt. But no gaping wound. 

_ Did he die? _

Eddie blinked, looking around. The whole place was quiet. Too quiet. Where were the others? 

Really, he should get up and investigate, but that old, familiar, encroaching fear tugged at him. What had happened? Where was Pennywise? Had the others killed him? Had  _ he  _ killed  _ them _ ? Was Eddie alone? Was he alone  _ with  _ IT? Why was it so fucking quiet?

Was this real?

It felt real. His fingers were numb and wrinkled, like he’d been laying in this cold, wet alcove for too long. Biting his lip, he realised that his cheek didn’t hurt anymore. He fiddled with the bandage, peeling it off slowly. The skin below was dusted with faint stubble, but otherwise smooth. 

Eddie let out a shallow whine, leaning his head back into the rock. This was some fucking IT shit, wasn’t it? Like the Goddamn dog. 

Fuck. Shit. Right, Eddie could do this. He’d kicked the fucking clown in the face when he was thirteen. He’d stabbed Henry Bowers in the chest. He’d javalined the stupid  _ fucking _ spider IT thing in the Goddamn mouth. He could do this. 

_ Look at me. _

Richie had said that, all those years ago, when Eddie was so sure he was going to get eaten. All he’d had to do was look at Richie and it wouldn’t be so bad. 

He thought about it now. 

Standing up, there wasn’t any pain. In fact, Eddie felt better than he had done in years. With baby steps, he peered around the lip of the cave he’d been sheltering in. 

No IT, thank God.

No Losers, either. 

He had to find them, right? They’d probably gone back up, hadn’t that been the plan? Drive it back to the entrance? The moments before he passed out were hazy to him now, but he thought he remembered that.

With his own footsteps cutting too loudly through the quiet, Eddie clambered towards the entrance. 

They weren’t there. 

He crawled through the too-narrow tunnels. 

Nothing. 

He pulled himself up and through the hatch door. 

No one. 

It wasn’t until Eddie had splashed his way back through the sewers, his breath coming in panicked waves - why the fuck had he set his inhaler on fire? - that he truly believed it. He’d been left. 

Peering up out of the side tunnel, into the dim light at the top of the well, the sewers seemed more vast than ever. There was no rope for him to climb up. He was trapped. Almost casually, he reached his hand out to the side and dug his fingers into the old brick. Immediately, his grip slipped. There’s no way he could climb out, he’d fall to his death. 

_ Mind you, Bowers survived it.  _

Eddie grumbled to himself. Bowers was not an example to live by, he thought. 

Every which way he turned, he encountered iron grids, rock falls, or locked doors. Dead end after dead end. It really, truly seemed like there was no way out. At least IT wasn’t chasing him down. 

Immediately after he thought it, Eddie shivered. 

_ Don’t think about IT _ . 

The more time passed without incident, though, the more nervous Eddie became, wading his way through the rotten water. It was odd. It wasn’t fear - he was less scared by the minute - but he was undoubtedly on edge. 

Something was wrong. The others wouldn’t have just left him down here. Richie wouldn’t have just abandoned him. 

_ Maybe they would have _ , his mind supplied.  _ Maybe they would have if they thought you were dead. You had a gaping hole in your chest, Eddie. You  _ were  _ dead.  _

Then, a voice that sounded horribly like his mother _ , they were never really your friends, anyway. They never loved you, not like me, not like  _ I  _ love you, Eddieeee.  _

No. Eddie stopped in the middle of the tunnel, greywater lapping at his shoes. He grit his teeth and said it out loud. “No. They  _ are _ my friends. They  _ do _ love me.” And, shockingly, he felt better. The words echoed in the tunnel, almost like the Losers were there, saying it back to him.

A sense of calm grew in him, then. Okay, he was alone,  _ technically _ . But he wasn’t, really. He wasn’t ever alone, really. The Losers were always with him, even in those years he couldn’t remember. And, something else. Something large and looming overhead, just out of sight, watching over him. 

IT hadn’t managed to kill him, not when he was a kid, and not now. He wasn’t going to die here in the sewers, either.

He’d see the others again. All of them. 

~

For Eddie’s birthday one year, maybe his thirteenth or fourteenth - they’d still had some vague memory of IT and the sewers and  _ Neibolt _ \- Richie had climbed up the drainpipe next to his bedroom window and snuck in. It must have been just after midnight, as he’d made a show of being the first person to wish him happy birthday. He’d brought a bag of sweets - all the things his dentist father had warned him off, that’s how Richie knew they were the best - a pile of comics to read, and Eddie’s present, wrapped in crinkled green tissue paper. 

“Open it,” Richie had whispered, already ripping open the packet of strawberry Twizzlers. Eddie remembered thinking how his eyes had almost twinkled in the moonlight. 

It was a small, red Ferrari F40 self-assembly model, complete with model glue, brush, and a tiny magnifying glass. 

Eddie had held the plastic packaging tightly in his hands, the tissue paper floating down over his bed covers. 

“I know your mom never let you finish that soapbox. Figured this might hit the mark,” Richie had mumbled, pushing his glasses further up his nose. He’d shrugged. “It’s kind of lame, but -”

“No, it’s not,” Eddie had cut him off. “It’s great. Thanks, Rich.”

Eddie had never told any of the Losers about what had happened to his half-completed soapbox car in the garage. How, one day, he’d gone in to mess with it and it just hadn’t been there. He’d asked his mother and she’d denied all knowledge of there ever having been anything in the garage at all. Like Eddie was the crazy one. 

For a long time, he’d thought he was. 

So, he’d never said a thing. But Richie had known. Richie had always known.

~

It had been hours. Hours and hours, Eddie was sure. He couldn’t be one hundred percent - his four hundred and seventy dollar watch had stopped working, no doubt filled to the brim with sewer water,  _ disgusting _ \- but  _ God _ , time was going slowly.

How long was he going to have to wait down here?

The thing about being trapped in the sewers underneath Derry (he sure as hell wasn’t going back down into IT’s lair, thank you very much) was, they weren’t overly conducive to a positive mental attitude. Eddie had attended enough corporate training workshops to know that maintaining his mental health was half the battle. And, sure, it wasn’t something he’d ever been super successful at before, but what’s being stabbed through the chest and coming out the other side without so much as a scar to show for it if not a trigger for change?

Perhaps, though, he did need to go to an extra workshop or two. He was pretty sure he was having some sort of mental meltdown. 

He kept fucking hearing things; the clanging of footsteps, the splashing of water. Someone was down here now, with him. 

Or, he was losing it. 

“Stanley!” he heard …  _ Beverly _ scream. Except, she sounded so different, so -

“Stan, dude, get back -” And, shit, that was definitely Richie, but not  _ his _ Richie. That was Richie of old, with his up and down voice that took so long to finally settle. 

But, that didn’t make sense, did it? 

Why the hell were they calling for Stan? Stan was dead. But, then, so had Eddie been.

_ Oh, yeah, Eddie. You’ve gone. You’ve been threatening to tip over the edge since you were a kid, and now it’s finally happened.  _

Before Eddie could worry about it any more, however, he fainted. 

~

_ I HAVE BEEN SLEEPING. _

_ DREAMING. _

_ I WISH TO REPAY THIS DEBT. _

_ I OFFER YOU A CHANCE. _

_ TO LIVE AS A DREAM. _

_ YOU MUST UPHOLD YOUR OATH. _

_ ~ _

What did Eddie dream of? He dreamed of freedom, away from the wife who he didn’t love, away from the memory of his mother, away from his allergies and his pills and his oh-so-regular checkups. He dreamed of sunshine, and laughter, and leaving his bike by the river to go and lie in the tall grass. 

Of knowing that, when he needed them, his friends would be there. His  _ family _ would be there. 

Of seeing Richie every day. Richie. His best friend.

Of strawberry and model glue and ripped green tissue paper.

♜

Eddie. Eddie, Eddie,  _ Eddie.  _

Alive and - Well, he looked like shit if Richie was being honest, his bloody, tattered clothes hanging off him, covered in the dirt and slime of the sewers, but that didn’t matter because he was  _ alive _ .

“Holy shit.”

Eddie had been alive, and they’d fucking left him down there. 

The others evidently weren’t as consumed by this revelation as Richie. As he fought down the urge to vomit while simultaneously trying to get his body to  _ move, Goddamnit, Eddie’s right there, _ they surged forward in a cacophony of yells and arms. 

He watched, dumbstruck, as Bev and Bill caught Eddie first, wrapping themselves against his sides like limpets. 

“Eddie,” Bev cried. “You’re okay! How -” the rest of her sentence became too muffled to hear, however, when Mike planted himself on top of the three of them, his long arms engulfing them all. Ben clambered onto the sloping wall of the tunnel to come up behind Eddie and complete the circle. 

They were smiling, laughing in wet chokes, tears in their eyes, holding each other tight.

And still, Richie couldn’t move. 

_ We left him down here. _

From over Bill’s shoulder, Eddie raised his eyebrows at Richie, the shrug that Richie knew was there hidden by the pile of bodies around him. There was something a little like hurt in his eyes and bile rose in Richie’s throat once more.

“Have you been down here since yesterday?” Ben asked, dazed, pulling away. The splashing of the sewer water brought them all back down to earth a little. 

“Was it only a day? Shit,” Eddie winced, shoulders dropping. He pressed his hair down against his head with a flat palm. “Yeah, I mean, I woke up and the place was abandoned. Did you assholes really have to pull the rope up when you left? A real kick in the teeth.”

He said it in jest - or, what passed as jest with Eddie - but it cut right to Richie’s core. And maybe he let out a noise, a splutter or a groan, because Eddie was turning to him then, a pinched expression on his face. Richie still hadn’t moved from the spot he’d been standing in when Eddie dropped into the tunnel.

“Rich, come on,” Eddie said, his voice a little too measured. He raised his arms just a fraction. The message was clear enough. “Am I too covered in literal shit for you?”

“Yeah. It’s too strong, man. Making my eyes water,” Richie gasped out.

Standing there, in the middle of the sewer, with Eddie waiting for him, he burst into tears. 

The other man, however, took it in his stride. “Hey,” he said, half-way towards a croon. He closed the space between them, his hands coming to curl around Richie’s arms. Fuck, those hands had been limp and still the last time Richie had touched them. “That sad I’m alive?” Eddie teased, gently.

“Fucking distraught,” Richie replied, though he wasn’t sure anybody could understand him around his heaving breaths. He folded himself down against Eddie. “You were dead, Eds,” he moaned.

He had been dead. He’d been  _ gone _ .

“Yeah.”

“You died. We left you.” Richie pressed his face in as close as he could to the other man, just to feel the heat from his skin. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Eddie. Please. I didn’t want to.”

Oh, God,  _ Eddie. _ Richie clung tight, too scared to say any more. He couldn’t trust his voice, all he could focus on was keeping a hold of Eddie. He wouldn’t let go, not again, not ever. 

“He duh-didn’t,” Bill chimed in. He sounded far away to Richie, who’s heart rate didn’t seem to want to slow down. “We had to drag him back out of the house. A real … A real m-mess,” he trailed off. “Shit, Euh-E-Eddie. We really thought you were dead, we w-wouldn’t -”

“I know.” Richie felt Eddie’s chest vibrate against his own as he spoke. Attempting to calm himself, he began to breathe with Eddie. In and out. Richie almost laughed. Which one of them had led their whole life believing they had asthma, again? “It’s alright,” Eddie replied. “I thought I was dead, too. I think - I think maybe I was? Or something. Hey,” his voice pitched up an octave. “Did any of you see a giant turtle thing? Like, a giant  _ talking _ turtle?”

“Yeah,” Bev sighed.

“Shared delusion,” Ben said.

“Shared  _ v-vision _ .”

Mike’s voice was laced with an odd kind of humour as he said, “We’re trying to figure out what  _ other _ oath we all made that none of us can remember.”

There was a beat. Richie thought about opening his eyes. Eddie was probably getting annoyed by his clinging.  _ His grip’s still pretty firm at your back, though, Richie.  _ Whatever. At least he’d stopped crying. “This is fucked up, man,” Eddie breathed out. Then, “Yeah, about delusions, though. Am I fucking hallucinating right now, or is that -”

_ Fuck.  _ Richie had forgotten about the Goddamn teenagers. They’d been so quiet during the rousing reunion, that they’d almost vanished into the walls.

“Oh, right, yeah,” Mike said, as if he’d just remembered himself. “We’re in the past.”

“What?” Eddie replied. Richie could just imagine the expression he was pulling right now.

Mike hummed. “We time travelled into the past,” he said. “It’s nineteen ninety-three.”

“Did he put you up to this?” Eddie said, flatly. There was no doubt who the ‘he’ in question was. “Richie, did you put them up to this? Is this a bit?”

“No,” Richie said, voice thick, but miraculously steady. He pulled his face out from where he’d been hiding against Eddie’s hair. “No, I don’t have the attention span for a bit like this.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. Richied sighed. “Right, so …”

By the time they’d finished explaining, the younger Losers had shuffled closer, their eyes wide and blinking. Eddie, after Richie had finally let him go so that he could contribute to the story properly, was leaning against the side of the sewer. It was a testament to how absurd the tale was, that Eddie didn’t even seem bothered about the  _ whatever-it-was _ covering the walls. Or, perhaps, he’d just accepted that he’d already reached maximum sewer-gunk capacity. 

With his arms folded and a frown on his face, Eddie said slowly, “So, what you’re telling me is that I’ve been down here, alone, for over twenty-four hours, with a hibernating Pennywise just  _ somewhere _ here with me?”

Bill grimaced. “Er, y-yeah. Yeah, pretty much.”

“He’s a heavy sleeper, I guess,” Richie added. 

“He’s a -” Eddie rolled his eyes, clearing biting down on a smile.  _ Oh, Eddie.  _ “Rich, dude, sincerely, shut the fuck up.”

The others were probably expecting a teasing response, maybe Eddie was too, but Richie just couldn’t. He just  _ couldn’t _ . “I missed you.”

Eddie, however, just smiled, brown eyes soft and warm. “I gathered,” he said. “But you still had mini-me, right?”

“Mini?” young Eddie piped up, his sharp voice cutting through the air like a gunshot. Young Ben startled in alarm. “Fuck off.”

“Hah,” Richie intoned, sincerely, grinning at Eddie. 

Young Richie stuck his hands in his pockets, cocking his head at Eddie.  _ Wow, that was a point. What the hell was going through that kid’s mind right now? _

“I think I’m taller than you, man,” the teen snickered.

Of course. Richie snorted. He had always thought Eddie was cute that way. Hadn’t he been delighted when he’d turned up at the Jade of the Orient like he did? Like a lion trapped inside the body of a house cat.

“Oh, my God. There’s two of you.” Eddie blinked at the younger pair. “This is my worst nightmare.” Then he paused. Cocked his head. Young Richie squirmed. “I forgot your hair went curly when it was long.”

The words had barely left his mouth before young Eddie giggled. “Yeah, he’s like a fucking brillo pad.”

“Would you - You have curly hair too, you idiot,” young Richie snapped to a backdrop of teenage Losers sighing heavily.

As much as the sight was utter heaven - imagine, being happy to linger down in these sewers? - the stench really was getting quite intense. While young Richie and Eddie bickered, Stan gagged behind them.

“Yeah, yeah, look, alright,” Richie said, voice raised above the performance. “We can do introductions later. How about we, you know,” he flapped his hands. “ _ Vamos _ .”

“Oh, finally,” Bev crowed. 

With the rest of them rising to their feet, Eddie hung back, nudging his younger self’s shoulder. “You wait, I have so much dirt on him,” he said, lowly, grinning over at Richie with a glint in his eye. “This is going to be great.”

Immediately, teenage Richie stopped in his tracks. 

“Walk and t-talk,” young Bill said, shoving at his back. 

Young Richie acquiesced, but pouted. “That’s not fair! You have to give me something on him,” he whined, turning to Richie. 

Richie was very aware of the rest of the Losers listening carefully, but still he shrugged, his hands in his pockets, and said, “Sorry, buddy, no can do. Eddie’s literally perfect.”

Studiously avoiding either of the Eddie’s eyes after he spoke, Richie locked his gaze instead with Stan, who let out the gentlest scoff Richie had ever heard. And then, because he was weak, Richie  _ did _ chance a lightning-fast look at young Eddie. Even in the dark, the blush on his cheeks was obvious.

“You’re adjusting to this surprisingly well,” Mike called out from the front of the group, splashing their way closer and closer to the surface. He smiled at Eddie, who shrugged. It was a relaxed gesture that Richie hadn’t seen so much on the adult version of his friend.

“Well, the thing is Mikey,” Eddie said, voice much more steady now. “Is that no matter how fucked up this whole thing is, it beats being dead.”

The Losers’ laughter echoed around the tunnel.  _ Look at that. Eddie got off a good one. _

“I can’t argue with that,” Mike beamed.

At long last, after they had clambered up the well, navigated the kitchen of Richie’s actual Goddamn nightmares, and hurried out of the front door, Richie turned his face up to the sun. 

They were outside again, they were free, and _Eddie_ _was alive._

It was a fucking dream. 

He felt it more than anything when Eddie came to stand next to him. He squinted over and saw the other man already looking at him with a strange smile on his face. 

“Hey, I never said,” Riche started, wrinkling his nose a little awkwardly. “Thanks for saving me. From the deadlights.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Eddie responded. He grimaced. “I owed you from the crab head thing, right?”

“You didn’t owe me, Eds.”

“No, I ‘spose I didn’t.” He turned to face Richie full on. “Sorry I died.”

It was so abrupt that Richie thought he might laugh. Instead, though, heat burst behind his eyes. Again. “Don’t worry about it,” he croaked, shaking his head and trying to regain his composure. “Looks like it didn’t take.”

Eddie rolled his eyes as Ben yelled at them, “Come on, you two!” The others were already further up the road. “You hang around any longer we’ll start to think you like it here!”

Eddie barked out a laugh. “I never want to see this place again.”

“Your wish is my command, my liege,” Richie replied with a smile. He slung his arm around Eddie’s shoulder and led him out towards the gate. 

♛

Beverly was suspicious. 

She had been for a while now, watching the pair of them. Richie and Eddie, that was. There was something …  _ off _ about them. 

In the day since they’d discovered that Eddie wasn’t dead (and  _ God _ , every time she thought about  _ that _ , her mind stumbled on the mere possibility), they’d been behaving … Well, they’d been behaving. Not perfectly, this was Richie and Eddie they were talking about, but  _ behaving _ nonetheless. 

There’d been smiles and offers of help and a distinct lack of edge to their teasing. 

Not that they’d been cruel to each other before, not at all - Bev had always known, along with the rest of the Losers, that pulling each others’ pigtails was how they’d showed each other they cared - but there’d always been a smattering of something brash in their words. A little hazardous. Alarmed. Now, that brashness had fizzled out into something …  _ fond. _

“They’ve always been fond of each other,” Ben had said when she’d mentioned it. 

And,  _ yes _ , they had, Bev wasn’t denying that. It was just, now it was so open. So obvious. It was like they’d forgotten the rest of them could see. 

Of course, she was probably reading too deeply into it. Eddie had just been resurrected from the dead, he was bound to be feeling a little tender. Richie was probably the closest to him out of all of them. She bit her lip, recalling his whispered confession the other night.  _ Punishment _ . It was only to be expected that he might be a little softer with Eddie in the wake of losing him. 

Except, the way Richie was looking at him - 

“I still say the turtle’s talking nonsense. We completed the oath, we stayed.”

They were in the clubhouse again. The small space was even smaller with the thirteen of them crammed in. Still, it was nice. Bev pushed herself further into the slightly damp smelling beanbag she’d dropped into half an hour ago. Next to her, young Bill let out a groan. 

“There muh-must be something. How could a magic t-t-turtle be wrong?”

Bill - adult Bill - nodded. Bev bit down on a grin. He was literally talking to himself, how did nobody else find this funny, still? She glanced at Richie, who was grinning openly. 

“W-we  _ need _ to figure this out,” Bill said. He stopped where he stood, crown grazing the ceiling of the clubhouse, and turned to the corner where a handful of the teenage Losers had gathered. “Do you ruh-ruh-remember any other oath?”

Young Richie snorted. He was crammed into the hammock with Eddie - and hadn’t that been a real blast from the past, coming down the ladder and seeing  _ that? _ \- though they’d both shifted as conversation started, their legs sticking out of the front and dragging on the floor. “I made an oath with Bev the other day,” the teen commented, dryly. “To always give her my leftover pizza crusts. Maybe that’s what it means.”

“Shut up, Richie,” Stan called from where he was sitting, legs crossed in the corner.

Bev hummed. “You did renege on that one, Rich,” she said, smiling lazily at the boy. “I was serious. Turtle’s after you.”

Young Richie grinned, winking at her. He really was a devil. Her gaze travelled over to the older Richie, who was regarding her with an amused expression. 

A sigh made its way around the clubhouse and young Ben rested his chin against his hands. “There’s nothing else,” he said, somewhat morosely. He looked tired, Bev thought. He’d always lost a bit of his optimism when he was tired. “That’s what made the first one so special, right?”

“Right,” older Ben replied. Bev craned her neck to send him a questioning look.

“You can’t agree with yourself,” Eddie laughed, his head leant against the wall of the clubhouse. “That doesn’t count.”

“I can,” Ben demurred. “And I am. We need to be methodical about this.”

“Oh, here we go,” Richie sighed, alongside Eddie’s continued laughter.

Ben ignored him. “Mike, is there anything you recall from your research about oaths or time travel or …”

“Floating turtles?” Richie supplied. Bev picked up an old playing card from the floor and threw it at him. It missed, instead, landing next to Bill’s foot.

“Not floating turtles,” Mike admitted. “But I can have a look. I mean, it was all in my truck. It’s here.”

“I thought you threw that away,” Bev asked. Goodness, he can’t have brought that with him? That was the point of him leaving, wasn’t it? All of a sudden, that decades-old feeling churned inside her. She knew what it was now, of course. Guilt.

“A lot of it,” Mike replied, looking a little guilty himself. “Not  _ everything. _ Hang on,” he said, and headed up the step ladder. 

The group watched his feet disappear through the trapdoor before young Eddie came out with, “So, you’re a real nerd, Mike.”

More than one of the young Loser’s cackled. 

“So are you!” the young Mike fired back, leaning forward. “‘Risk Analyst’. What even is that?”

Bev really didn’t need the eager tap Ben gave her on her arm to pay attention. She was all ears, grinning so wide it hurt, as soon as Eddie let out a spluttered noise of disgust and started, “It’s very well respected -”

“I’m rich!” teenage Eddie interrupted. 

“We’re all rich.”

“ _ I think you’ll find - _ ” young Richie cut in, in some kind of voice. Maybe it was an anchorman? Old professor? Who knew. 

“Shut  _ up _ , Richie.”

Oh, how Bev had missed this. For a second, she imagined what Tom would have said, seeing her there. The very idea was absurd, laughter bubbling up in her throat. Why was she wasting time, wondering what that man would think of anything? She’d lost enough of her life on him. Instead, she closed her eyes, letting the sound of the Loser’s bickering fill her up. 

Thankfully, Mike wasn’t too long in returning, ladened with more than enough books to keep them occupied. He handed them out like presents. Most of them were old and dusty and, in some cases, crinkled with damp. Stan held the book Mike had handed to him with his fingertips, carefully setting down on the floor. 

The Losers worked diligently. For a while, at least. Comments like, ‘There’s a ritual here for banishing a hangover, think that would work?’, ‘How many people is a n-n-nonet?’ (‘Twenty-seven’, according to Richie), and, ‘Would a giant floating turtle be considered a false idol?,’ broke through the faint music playing through Richie’s old radio. 

As the intro to ‘I’m on Fire’ crackled through the small speakers, Bev smiled, probably a little wistfully, at her younger self humming along. She’d loved this song. It was one her mother's favourites. She hadn’t heard it in years. Could she still remember the words? 

_ ‘And a freight train running through the middle of my head, only you, you cool my desire.’ _

That’s right. Like riding a bike.

“What about these, Mike?” she asked as she leaned forward to pick up another notebook. Beneath the dwindling pile, a small stack of envelopes lay innocuously where they’d been dropped. 

“Oh, that’s just ...”

Mike paused mid crouch, his fingers lingering against the edge of one of the envelopes.

“Mike?”

“... just the mail. I left it …” he trailed off, as if he’d gotten bored of his own sentence. He held up an envelope for them to see, the neat handwriting on the front revealing nothing about Mike’s hesitance. “This is from Atlanta.”

“Er, congratulations?” Richie replied after a beat of silence.

“No, I mean, Stan. Stan was in Atlanta.”

Twelve pairs of eyes turned to the teenager still curled up in the corner. Stan stared back at Mike for a second before shrugging. 

Eddie said, quietly into the silence, “It’s from Stan? Before he …?”

The faint beams of light from the hatch above illuminated the dust in the air. The moment felt heavy, and Bev wondered if the others could feel it too; that firm pressure on their backs, pressing them forward. 

“I don’t know,” Mike half-whispered. “Maybe.”

“Well, shit,” Bill spluttered, pushing away from the beam he’d been resting against. He was at Mike’s side in an instant. “Open it.”

Following orders, Mike ripped the top of the envelope, pulling out the letter within. The entire room seemed to hold its breath. It was Stan, Bev knew it. She blinked away the image of him, in the bathtub, eyes half-mast and cold. 

“ _ Dear Losers _ ,” Mike started. A strange noise left Ben’s mouth, somewhere between a groan and a cry. 

Mike read. 

The Losers listened.

“...  _ Be who you want to be. Be proud. And if you find someone worth holding on to, never ever let them go. Follow your own path, wherever that takes you. Think of this letter as a promise. _ ”

“‘Promise’,” Richie cut in, skin pale beneath his stubble. “Is this - Shit, is this it?” he asked, staring wide-eyed at each of them. “Stanley’s fucking suicide note?”

“It’s not a suicide note, Jesus,” Eddie snapped. 

In the corner, Stan was staring at the ground. Young Bill crawled over to sit next to him.

“ _ Think of this letter as a promise. A promise I'm asking you to make. To me. To each other. An - An oath.  _ Christ, Stan,” Mike sighed, rubbing at his neck. “ _ See, the thing about being a loser is you don't have anything to lose. So, be true. Be brave. Stand. Believe, and don't ever forget we're Losers and we always will be. _ ” Mike, bizarrely, let out a soft laugh. “He’s crossed out ‘Stanley Uris’ and signed it as ‘Stan the Man’.”

All of them stared, dumbstruck. Bev sniffed and wiped her eyes dry. 

“Well, what the fuck!?”

“Rich,” Ben tempered.

“No, come on,” Richie insisted. He made to stand, catching the side of his head on a low beam. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means,” Mike - young Mike, now - said, in a mature, considered manner. “That you should tell us everything.” 

“We told you -”

“Not everything. Not the little stuff.”

Young Bev pushed herself up onto her knees, the hem of her old dress dragging in the dust. “Right,” she said, eyes flicking between the lot of them. “This is what the turtle was trying to tell you, it has to be. That you can tell us where you went wrong, so we can change it. We can do what you wish you had.”

“A dream,” teenage Eddie echoed, almost to himself. 

_ To live as a dream. _ That’s what the turtle had said, right? That’s what Maturin promised, if they upheld the oath. The oath that none of them had known they’d made. 

_ Be true. Be brave. Stand.  _

_ Believe. _

What if - 

Bev ran a finger across her knuckles, thinking. What if she told herself - this  _ child _ \- everything that had happened. Tom, Ben, everything. Could it all be avoided? That was what her dream was, wasn’t it? To have remembered Ben, to have known. To have never married Tom Rogan. She didn’t  _ want _ to carry on the cycle.

_ January embers. _

“We can change everything that we regret,” Ben said, faintly. His words fell in the air around them, taking hold of each of them. Bev reached out and curled her fingers around his wrist.

Bill looked pained. “What if it’s not, though?” he said. “We c-could mess -”

“I’m gay!” Richie all but yelled, cutting off the rest of Bill’s sentence. Bev snapped her head towards him so hard, she was pretty sure she’d be aching later. “I mean, I’m bisexual, but I don’t think you kids will know what that means yet,” Richie added, standing now. He had an expression on his face like maybe he was about to be sick. 

“What?” Eddie said, faintly, blinking up at him. 

“Oh, Richie.” Bev pushed her hair away from her face and he grimaced at her, shoving his hands into his pockets.  _ Are we the first people he’s told? _ Immediately, images of all the shows she’d ever seen him on, all the stand-ups, the talk shows, the specials, flashed in her mind’s eye. Every joke he’d told that had clearly been a lie. 

_ I don’t write my own material _ .

How long had this been eating away at him? All of a sudden, she became very aware of the young Richie, stock still in the hammock. 

Quietly, almost shyly, teenage Eddie leant forward, his feet swinging against the floor. “What -” he stumbled over the words, casting a wary eye on the lot of them. “What  _ does _ ‘bisexual’ mean?”

When Richie remained silent, Ben cleared his throat. “Er, it means that you’re attracted to both men and women - to, er, multiple genders.”

Next to Bev, the young version of Bill snapped his eyes to teen Richie. “Yuh-yuh-you’re attracted t-to muh-m-men?” he asked, and he sounded … strained. There was nothing of the Big Bill there that Bev had known and loved, none of their leader. Instead, he was unsure. Scared.

“ _ No, _ ” young Richie retorted, emphatically. 

“Yes,” older Richie corrected.

“Fuckin’ - Shut the hell up, you don’t know - He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Richie snorted, though his skin was still a pale grey. “I do.”

“Fuck off,” the kid snapped, shoving himself off the hammock, sending Eddie half flying.

The older Eddie reached out a hand to their Richie, curling around his elbow lightly. “Richie,” he said, in as soft a voice as Bev had ever heard.

The other man didn’t seem to be listening. He stepped forward, out of Eddie’s reach, and further towards his young self, crowding him. “I’m sorry, kid, but if we’re doing regrets, then that’s it.”

Young Richie glowered. “You asshole.”

Oh, God.  _ Richie. _ That poor kid. Poor Richie. This was - Oh, God. Bev pressed her hands to her cheeks. What were they supposed to do in this situation?

“Is it t-t-t- _ tuh  _ -” Young Bill started, cutting himself off with a huff and rising to his feet. “What he s-said, is that ruh-r-right?”

“No,” teen Richie growled.  _ He’s like a cornered animal _ , Bev thought.  _ Someone’s going to get scratched.  _

“Then w-why’d he s-say it?”

“Bill -” Bill - adult Bill,  _ reasonable _ Bill - interjected.

“Wuh-why he’d say it!?”

Richie flexed his jaw. His magnified eyes glistened underneath his too-long hair. “I don’t know,” he said and,  _ God _ , it was more of a plea, really, wasn’t it? Just a kid pleading with his friends.

“ _ Richie. _ ” 

The young Big Bill stepped closer and Bev rushed, “Bill, don’t be a dick.”

“I-I’m  _ not _ ,” the young boy snapped. He was shaking, Bev noticed. His eyes were wide in panic. “I juh-just think wuh-we have a r-right to know if he’s - if he’s - if he’s a fag.”

There was a beat of silence before -

“Bill!” young Mike shot out, at the same time as Eddie said, “What the fuck, dude?”

Bev sighed, scrunching her eyes shut. “Oh, my God.”

Over it all, adult Bill’s shoulders slumped. He was barely two paces away from Richie and Bev watched as he clasped his hands together behind his neck and shook his head. He grimaced as he said, “Shit. Richie, I’m sorry.”

Richie, for his part, remained stoic. “‘S’alright, man,” he muttered.

Of course, Eddie took that opportunity to snap, jumping and pointing an alarmingly vicious finger at young Bill. “No, it’s not. What the fuck is your problem?”

“Oh, w-what, so you’re all c-c-cool with it thuh-then?” the teenager spluttered, red in the face now. He looked at the rest of the Losers with a strange expression on his face. It was - Beverly had never seen him look like that. It was sheer, unadulterated panic. 

“Yes,” Bev said softly. She caught Richie’s gaze and nodded. “Yes, Richie we’re - It’s fine. It’s - Thank you for telling us.”

“Of course we’re cool with it, you little shit -”

“Eddie!” Mike groaned, as the other man rounded on the kid once more. That was weird in itself. Eddie loved Bill. 

At the far side of the clubhouse, young Ben dropped his head into his hands. “Holy shit,” Bev thought she heard him whisper underneath Eddie’s escalating tirade.

“- If you’ve got an issue you can take it outside.”

“F-fuck this,” the young Bill spat out, seemingly having enough of them. He shoved past his older self, shouldering him so hard that adult Bill stumbled back. The rest of them just stared, aghast, as his trainer-clad feet vanished from view. 

In his wake the air of the clubhouse was even heavier.

“Wow,” young Bev said.

_ Wow, indeed. _

Of course, it wasn’t over. Still standing, gnawing at his lip and breathing heavily, young Richie looked fixedly at the ground. 

“So,” teenage Eddie drew out the word, still engulfed in that ridiculous hammock. “You like guys, then?”

Richie, young as he was, seemed to have a better control of his emotions than Bill. He didn’t yell, or cry, or run. He climbed out of the clubhouse slowly, not looking at any of them, ignoring all their calls for him to stay. 

“Hey, buddy,” older Richie sighed, with the air of someone who was tired beyond measure. The man reached out to take the younger’s arm. 

“Don’t touch me!” teen Richie snapped then.  _ If looks could kill _ . “Fuck,” he cursed under his breath, speeding up his climb.

Silence descended. Bev couldn’t think of a single thing to say. 

“Well,” Bill croaked. “That’s a guh-good start.”

Richie actually laughed. “Yeah,” he said, clapping Bill’s back. “Living the dream, right?”

The air in the clubhouse was close and tense. Suddenly, Bev felt so inherently out of place there, that she almost ran out after the two teens. On the opposite side of the room, Richie dropped his head into his hands. Eddie reached out a hand to his shoulder and Bev watched as it hovered just above the skin.  _ Do it _ , she thought.  _ Please, just - _

She let out a breath as Eddie’s hand curled around Richie’s shoulder. Richie himself seemed to sag under the touch. 

Resting her forehead to Ben’s arm where he sat next to her, Bev eyed her younger self, who was currently worrying her bottom lip, eyes on the floor. 

_ God _ , they had a lot to go through.

♜

_ Well, Richie, what the hell did you do that for? _

It was the big question that had been whirling around his head for several hours now. It was getting late and, as those who remained had ambled their way out of the absurdly small clubhouse - seriously, how had any of them fit before this? - younger Ben (the lesser spotted Ben, as Richie had begun to refer to him as) shyly offered them shelter for the night. Apparently Mamma Hanscom was out of town for a few days. 

It was just, everyone was being so very polite about the whole thing. As if Richie hadn’t just outed his seventeen-year-old self to all of his friends and caused a giant argument in the process. Personally, Richie thought he could do with a good argument right about now, let out some of that energy, but the universe didn’t agree. 

It was at the first opportunity, then, that he offered to be the one to go and pick up the food for dinner. Anything to be able to be alone with his own …  _ what?  _ Self-flagellation?

“Wait,” Eddie called, as Richie approached the front door of the almost overbearingly twee Hanscom house. “I’ll come with.”

“I thought you wanted to clean up?” he replied, dumbly.

“I have,” Eddie said, closing the door behind the two of them. “You should see their shower. Miles better than yours.” 

“Well, to be fair, you did have to stealth-shower then. Why you chose my house to sneak into after emerging from the dead is beyond me.”

“I know your house,” he shrugged. “It’s comforting.” 

Richie raised a hand to his chest. “Aw,” he teased, ignoring the swell of warmth in his heart that had accompanied Eddie’s words.

“And I could hardly go to mine, could I?” Eddie continued, ignoring him. “Imagine if my mother had spotted me. I’d been in handcuffs in an instant.”

“ _ Top news this evening, another victim of the Towelled Terror. Residents are advised not to approach, who knows what weapons he’s concealing beneath his -” _

“Yeah,  _ thank you _ , Mr Netflix Special.” 

They walked down Harris Avenue towards Main Street in companionable silence. The sun was beginning to set, casting a pale orange glow over the summer evening. As they passed a collection of newly built houses, children’s giggling laughter filtered through one of the opened windows, followed by a TV theme tune that Richie thought he recognised. 

Was it ‘The Next Generation’? No, that wasn’t it. Maybe ‘Quantum Leap’? Oh, idiot. It was ‘Twin Peaks’! Of course it was. What a fucking show. 

“What?” he said, upon seeing Eddie looking over at him expectantly. 

Eddie rolled his eyes. “So, bisexual, huh?”

_ Oh.  _

“So, back from the dead, huh?” Richie parrotted back at him. 

Eddie hummed, his hands in his pockets as he kicked a stone further down the sidewalk. “It doesn’t make you any less of a trashmouth in my eyes,” he said, casually. “Just so you know.”

Richie couldn’t think of how to reply to that without either giving himself away or bursting into tears. Or both. Instead, he went with an indeterminable grunt. 

“Must have been tough,” Eddie continued. Richie got the sense he was deliberately not looking over at him and, for once, he was immeasurably grateful for it. “Having to do that routine all the time.”

“Yeah,” Richie said, slowly. “It’s a funny thing, I think I forgot? I knew when I was a kid - God, mini-me is so pissed - but, like - It’s like I regressed in my head?” Richie fiddled with his glasses, feeling Eddie’s eyes on him now. Heat rose in his cheeks.  _ It’s okay _ , he thought.  _ You can say it. It’s not your fault you forgot your entire fucking childhood. It was Pennywise. It was IT, not you. You’re fixing it, just like the turtle said. _ “Like, I knew, but at the same time I never put a name to it, not even to myself.” He groaned, the utter horror on his younger self’s face when he’d gone and confessed everything flashed before him. “I probably shouldn’t have said it like that but, I don’t know, I just panicked. It was like, if I didn’t say it then, I never would.”

Eddie nodded at him, like he knew what Richie meant. That was the thing with Eddie; he always knew what Richie meant. 

“That sucks,” he came out with. 

Richie laughed, bright and loud, at last looking over to the other man. “Yeah,” he said, grinning at Eddie’s bashful smile. How wonderful was it, to have Eddie there with him, in that moment? Just an ordinary evening, the two of them walking down the street to collect their dinner. What more could Richie ask for? “Yeah, it sucks.”

They’d reached the high street by then, a handful of Derry residents taking advantage of the later summer evenings. Richie’s eyes lingered on the canal, just off to the right. Mad, really, that all of that horror happened right below them. Hidden beneath, it was there the entire time. 

He clapped his hands, spinning on the balls of his feet towards Eddie. “So,” he proclaimed, plastering a smile on his face. “What do you fancy, it’s your second birth. Pizza? Milkshake?  _ Chinese? _ ”

Eddie’s face wrinkled in disgust - just what Richie was after - and he pouted, clearly not buying Richie’s mood but playing along anyway. “Could say the same for you,” he said. 

“Alright,” Richie dismissed, grabbing Eddie’s shoulders and shoving him in the direction of the burger joint he’d spotted on the way in. He couldn’t remember the place at all, which would be a pleasant change.  _ Something new. _ “Let’s not get too LA about it, I just got out of there.”

Back at Ben’s and ladened with burgers and fries galore (“Did you get b-barbeque sauce?” “Yes, Bill, you can drown your fries in it, you psychopath,”) Richie let his newfound terror settle in his stomach. It was all well and good coming out to his friends, a relief, even, but now … wouldn’t it be obvious? Wouldn’t they all work it out? Surely Eddie would realise the truth at some point? Around him everyone chatted away, laughing more than they had in a long, long time. With no IT to conquer and only their lives to improve, what could possibly be troubling them? So Richie grinned and joked and pushed his fear far, far down. With his leg knocking into Richie’s, Eddie snorted at something Bev was saying, and Richie drank his fill. 

Fuck, he hoped Eddie didn’t figure it out. It would change everything, of course it would, it couldn’t  _ not _ . He didn’t even know what Eddie’s plans were after this. Was he going back to New York? Staying with his wife? Returning to the life he’d had before he was fucking murdered by an alien clown?

Richie slumped, stuffing a handful of fries in his mouth. 

_ Guess I’ve got to make the most of it _ . 

He just had to figure out how to make it up to kid Richie. 

No matter what the turtle said, he’d have to wake up from his dream at some point. 

~

“Dude, that’s not a balanced breakfast,” was the first thing that Eddie said to him the next morning.

Pulling his plate of pop tarts closer to him on the small kitchen island, Richie grumbled, “I’ll balance your breakfast.”

Bev’s laughter floated in the light, white morning sun as she bounced into the kitchen behind Eddie. “What?” 

“Shush. I haven’t had coffee yet.”

The Hanscom kitchen was a treasure trove, really, almost snug in a way that Richie didn’t really remember from childhood. Now, though, it seemed to him to be something so perfect, so  _ safe,  _ so completely opposite to the life he led back in LA, that he almost didn’t want to leave. What if he refused? Just stayed here in Mrs Hanscom’s kitchen, eating pop tarts and laughing with his friends for the rest of his life? Who was going to fucking stop him?

Migrating towards the toaster, Bev smiled at him, her head cocked. “So that’s all it takes, to tumble the great Trashmouth? What happened to all that energy you had when we were kids?”

“Life,” Richie sighed. He wasn’t actually feeling particularly melancholy that morning, but sometimes a situation called for a little melodrama. He could read a room, after all, he was a professional.

“Geez,” Ben let out in a low whistle, sliding across the lino in his socked-feet. Jesus, he looked good after a night sleeping in a proper bed, eyes bright and stubble artfully sculpted.  _ Fucker. _ Richie watched as Ben flicked on the coffee machine in the corner with ease - the same one that Richie had stared at for a full five minutes without being able to find even the start button - opening cupboard doors with the confidence of someone who could find his way around the house in the dark. “I’ll make you one. Thought you were a comedian?”

Richie bit into his second pop tart, mumbling around the mouthful, “The best comedy comes from tragedy.”

“You are pretty tragic,” Eddie agreed, dropping into the barstool next to him with a huge glass of water and a slice of toast. Richie wrinkled his nose. Eddie had slept on the floor of the spare room with him last night and, in a move so reminiscent of teenage Richie that he wondered if perhaps there was some kind of mind-meld situation happening, he’d spent the majority of the night just lying awake, staring at Eddie’s sleeping face. 

“Morning.” 

“Oh,” Eddie groaned at Mike’s pleasant smile, his toast halfway to his mouth. “Do we want to know?” 

Behind him Bill stretched, yawning widely, his face lined where he’d clearly been sleeping on a crease. That was more like it.  _ At least someone else around here looks like they’re forty years old. _

“I’ve been thinking,” Mike said, also gravitating to the coffee machine.

“No,” Richie said, obnoxiously loud. He dusted his fingers off on his plate, letting the sugar gather in a small pile. Next to him, Eddie snorted. Richie tried not to preen.

Bill raised a hand, shuffling over to the other side of the island with a gigantic mug. “No,” he said, voice pitched high. “L-look, we’ve run it past Ben, he thinks it’s guh-guh-good.”

“Little Ben or Big Ben?” Eddie asked, eyebrows raised over the rim of his glass. 

Mike huffed, “Big Ben, -” 

Richie flicked Ben’s forehead with a loud ‘ _ Doing! _ ’ sound effect, reveling in his withering look in response.

“- little Ben has gone out already. He said to make sure we put the washing away.” Mike pointed at them, an undeniably ‘Dad’ air about him.

“Sir, yes, Sir,” Richie saluted, the others pulling up an assortment of stools to the island. “So. Plan. Does it involve tokens?”

“It does not,” Mike laughed softly.

“Alright, lay it on me.”

Leaning forward, Bill had a distinct twinkle in his eye when he said, “It’s Suh-suh-Stan’s birthday tomorrow. His seventeenth.”

“Huh,” Bev said, tongue stuck in her cheek. She was smiling, eyes off to the side. “I can’t remember what we did.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mike replied. “This time, we’re throwing a party, and we’re going to fix our collective pasts.”

Richie swallowed his coffee. “Oh,” he crowed, sharing a smirk with Eddie. “Just like that?” He turned back to Mike. “Sounds  _ so  _ easy, why didn’t we do that before?”

Ignoring his sarcasm, Mike shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all we can do, though, isn’t it? Just sit them down, explain everything, and then it’s up to them.”

“Seems a bit mean,” Bev pouted. “To wash our hands like that.”

Eddie shifted to the edge of his seat so that he was perched, practically standing. He tented the fingers of his right hand, frowning as he set them to the tabletop.  _ What was he thinking about?  _ “It’s not washing our hands,” he said, slowly. “It’s empowering.”

Out loud, Richie guffawed, “Oh, get a load of Mr Motivation over here.” On the inside though, he kind of wanted to pull Eddie to his side.  _ Look at this man _ , he thought, letting the stupid smile tug at his mouth.  _ Look at how far he’s come. _

“Eddie’s right,” Mike continued after watching Richie attempt to ruffle Eddie’s hair, and getting his hand swatted away for his troubles. “We just need to give them the push they need. Rich, you’ve already started yours yesterday.”

“Right, because that went so well.” 

He sipped his drink again as Bill offered a meek, “It’s a s-start.”

Pausing on the planning for a while, the Losers ate their breakfasts at a slow pace. It occurred to Richie, as the six of them talked and joked, that they hadn’t really got a chance to do this. After Neibolt a little, maybe, but then Eddie wasn’t - They hadn’t done it properly, as adults, just sat down together and caught up. No space monster to worry about. No immediate threat to life and limb. No likelihood of imminent death. Sure, they were back in time, but what was that? Eddie was here, IT was gone, the turtle was on their side. Everything was coming up Losers.

Eventually, however, Mike reigned them back in. He picked up his plate and mug, heading over to the sink and called over his shoulder, “Eddie, you need to deal with your mom once and for all.” 

Rather than the fear that Richie was expecting to see, however, Eddie simply squared his shoulders, a somewhat manic look in his eyes. 

_ Well, well, well. Guess he doesn’t need a pep talk for this one. _

“Ben, you just need to gain some confidence, right? Bev,” Mike paused, frowning. He leaned back against the counter as the sound of the running tap filled the room. “I mean, what do you think?”

Bev took a second before smiling over at Eddie. “‘ _ Empowerment’ _ ,” she said, softly. Eddie ducked his head before smiling back. 

“I need to f-forgive myself,” Bill added. 

“Sure,” Mike replied, moderately. 

“For a lot of things,” the other man continued. He spun on his stool, facing Mike entirely. “And you just need to get yourself out of Derry! Pursue your dreams!”

“Don’t forget Stan,” Eddie added. 

Mike nodded, suddenly much more serious. “No, we’ll need to team up for him.”

It had been nagging at Richie for a while, since they’d read the letter yesterday, really. What to do about Stanley? He grimaced, running a hand across his face. “And try to convince him not to kill himself?” he asked the room at large.

Five pairs of eyes stared back at him. Carefully, Mike started, “To prepare him earlier for the fear. Then he can adjust, or, cope better.” He licked his lips, meeting their eyes in turn. “Guys, if we play this right, we can save him.”

Bill hummed, nodding. Richie recognised that look; that was the look of the thirteen-year-old boy who had led them all into Neibolt with nothing but a belly full of courage. “We don’t know for s-sure if this will work, buh-but it’s what the t-turtle said.”

“What the turtle said. This won’t change history, right?” Richie said, with a wince. He didn’t want to be a downer, but,  _ well.  _ “I mean, if we do this, we won’t be around to defeat the clown?”

“No. B-but, I think it doesn’t matter. Don’t you f-f-feel that?” Now that Bill said it, maybe Richie did feel it? That kind of finality, ever since they’d arrived. Even when they were going down into Neibolt, he wasn’t worried about IT, not really. Not in a way that caused his heart to race and his hands to shake and his legs to want to flee. “Now we’ve done it, it’s in the p-p-past. Anything we do now can’t change t-that.”

Bev let out a faint breath. “I hope so.”

Bill nodded. “Alright,” he slapped his hand on the island. “Let’s go.”

_ Oh, come on _ . _ That won’t do at all.  _

“No,” Richie whined. “Say it.”

“What?”

Richie levelled him with a look. “You know. The thing. Say it.”

For a second, Bill simply stared, arms folded. Then, like a balloon slowly deflating, his shoulders sank. “Hi-yo Silver,” he sighed, though he couldn’t hide the way his mouth twitched around the words. 

“That’s more like it!” Richie cheered as he leapt to his feet. “Time to save our souls!”

~

Everything may have been coming up Losers, but maybe not coming up Richie, per se. Or perhaps this was a sign. 

He mulled it over as he, Bev and Ben (the designated procurers of party supplies) drove down to Costello Avenue. Ben had taken a shortcut across the Kissing Bridge and, naturally, because Richie had been mistaken and the universe  _ did _ hate him, they’d come across young Richie loitering near the fence. 

Richie didn’t even need to look to know why he was here. 

“Rich!” Bev called, rolling down the passenger-side window as Ben slowed the car to a stop. “Richie, hi!”

The boy ran a hand through his hair, cheeks pink. “Hey,” he said, a little breathlessly.  _ Oh, kid. Be a little more obvious why don’t you? _ He looked awful, Richie noted with a twinge of guilt, dark circles beneath his eyes, his hair a mess. Were those the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday? Fuck, had he been out all night? 

“You alright, kiddo?”

The teenage Richie didn’t even spare him a look, simply biting his cheeks and folding his arms. 

Ben leaned across Bev to say, “Round up everyone, okay? Party at the Barrens tonight. For Stan, you know?”

The boy’s finger’s jerked, as if he was fighting not to fidget with his glasses.

Richie groaned. “Don’t worry about the others, alright? It’ll be fine.”

He was graced with an acknowledgment then, in the form of a raised middle finger. 

“Okay, honey, just, be there, alright?” Bev said, a sweet smile on her face. Young Richie shuffled his feet then.  _ That’s right. A heartfelt request. Your weakness.  _ “We’re telling secrets,” she sang. The second Bev said it, however, she clearly realised what she’d done. “Oh, no. I didn’t -” she spluttered. “I don’t mean about you and Eddie.”

What?

_ What? _

_ What the ever-living - _

“Me and -” young Richie repeated, morose. 

From the back seat, Richie blurted out, “Excuse me?”

“You told them that, too!?” the kid yelled at him, firecracker energy sparkling in his words. 

_ Fuck, fuck, fuck.  _ His brain was just white noise, his stomach lurched as if he’d just been tipped over the edge of a roller coaster. His heart was beating way too fast. 

“I didn’t tell anyone shit,” he snapped, trying to kick himself back into gear.  _ Shit _ , his voice was shaking. He shoved at the back of Bev’s seat. “Beverly, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Fucking -”

Before Bev could even open her mouth, the teenager was off, running down the back of the fence and towards the Barrens. 

“Richie!” Bev called after him, scrambling to open the door. “Rich, I’m sorry! Come -” It was too late, he was well gone. “Ah.  _ Shit, _ ” she moaned, slumping back into her seat.

What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t gloss over this, could he? Did Bev  _ know _ ? Did she and Ben fucking  _ gossip _ about him when they were alone? Did all the Losers fucking know all about him and his stupid  _ fucking feelings _ ?

“What the hell?” he croaked out.

Ben cocked his head a faintly guilty grimace on his face. “Come on, man,” he said, far more gently than the situation called for.

“No, I - There’s nothing -” Richie stumbled over his words. It was like he was on stage again, the phone call from Mike circling in his mind, the spotlight on him but no words coming out. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You clearly have feelings for him.”

“I don’t ‘clearly’ anything,” he growled.

“Rich,” Bev reached out, curling her hand around his wrist. “It’s okay. Isn’t that the whole point of this?” Her eyes traveled across his face. She knew. Of course she knew. Richie wanted to hide. She sent him a small smile. “A second chance.”

_ Fuck. _

“You know, I think I might go raid my parents’ house,” he said, barely pausing for breath as he jumped out of the car. “They definitely have a chocolate fountain and a glitter ball hidden away in the loft somewhere.”

“Richie!” Bev called, but he didn’t turn back. Instead, he ran.

♜

Richie had never seen the Barrens look so nice. 

Above the lacework of leaves the moon had risen already in the still-blue sky. It was just after seven and the air was still warm, the faint breeze rustling through the tall bamboo. Richie felt a thousand miles away from the town, just past the trees. 

The glitter ball that he’d salvaged from his parents’ place (God bless the nineties and his mother’s unwavering trust in Derry just  _ not being the sort of place where burglars live, Richie _ ) spun high above on one of the branches of a towering red maple. Bill had dug out his solar-powered travel charger and portable speaker, and was currently wowing the young Losers with a music anthology of the noughties. 

“We have to wait for Richie,” Stan said, resolutely, looking altogether too serious for someone with a paper party hat perched on their head and an acid green feather boa around their neck. “He’s definitely coming, right Bev?”

Young Bev nodded, patiently, as ‘Clint Eastwood’ played in the background. “That’s what he said when I saw him,” she said, holding up the single cupcake she’d made for Stan, it’s candle flickering valiantly in the open air. 

Stan chewed on his lip. The older Losers shared a look. Honestly, Richie didn’t know if he would turn up. He hadn’t been seventeen in so long, he could barely remember how he’d felt about anything back then. 

“Alright, lame-o’s, quit your crying,” came young Richie’s voice, then, followed by a loud curse and the snapping of branches. The teen himself emerged from the trees almost sheepishly, a large bag in his hands. 

The other adults turned to Richie, sending him a look that said, so clearly, ‘Was the dramatic entrance quite necessary?’ All Richie could feel, however, was gratitude that the kid had at least changed his clothes.

“Rich!” Stan cried, rising to his feet. “Hey.”

Ordinarily the two boys would have hugged, it was Stan’s birthday, after all, though now they stumbled awkwardly around one another. Young Richie blushed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Hey,” he croaked and lifted the bag in front of him. “My mom made you pie.” Not waiting for an answer, he trundled towards the small gathering, dropping the bag and eyeing the phone and speaker set up on the small foldout table, all the while carefully not looking over to where younger Bill stood off to the side. “What the fuck is this?” he grunted waving a finger at the phone.

“Richie, my boy,” older Bill cheered, curling an arm around his shoulder. “You will f-fucking love this.”

After they’d delivered a warbling chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ to a blushing Stan and slices of Richie’s mom’s pie were being handed around on paper plates, Eddie came up to Richie’s shoulder and said, “He feels bad.”

The ‘he’ was obvious. Bill -  _ Big _ Bill - had been hovering around young Richie for the past quarter of an hour, his face a picture of anxiety. “I know,” Richie sighed. “He doesn’t need to. It wasn’t him.”

“No,” Eddie agreed. “ _ I _ feel bad.”

“Why?” 

“I think little me is avoiding you.” 

“Really? That’s -” Richie looked over to young Eddie, then, perched on the bean bag they’d dragged out of the clubhouse, smiling at something young Mike was saying. As he watched, teen Eddie’s eyes flicked towards his young self, a shadow of something travelling across his face, just for a second, before the smile was etched back on. Richie’s shoulders slumped. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Eddie grumbled, darkly. The effect was lost just a little as he shovelled pie into his mouth with a small plastic fork. “I’ll have a word when, you know, we have words.”

_ God _ , Richie could just imagine how well that would go down with teen Rich. He’d really thought, after the not-too-awful reaction of the kid in the clubhouse, and present day/future Eddie’s staunch support, that it would all be okay for the two of them. That it wouldn’t cause any fractions.

“Don’t be too mean,” he settled on. 

“I’m not mean,” Eddie defended, sending him an almost hurt look. “I can be measured.”

Richie snorted. “Sure, half-pint.”

Eddie knocked his foot, taking a long swig of beer. “Right,” he said, almost grimacing. “I’m going in. Wish me luck.”

“No can do. Keeping it all for myself.” He sent Eddie a strained smile and the man clapped his shoulder, striding across the woodland floor. 

“Right,” Richie sighed to himself. “Let’s do this.”

Cornering young Richie was easier than Richie had anticipated. Before he knew it, he was face to face with the kid who was regarding him with suspicion from behind his coke-bottle glasses. 

“I’m sorry, little dude,” Richie blurted, already regretting the glibness of the words as they left his mouth.  _ You can’t ever be sincere, can you? Not even to yourself. _

Young Richie rolled his eyes. “It’s whatever,” he said, utterly without enthusiasm, and took a swig of his beer.

_ Come on, Rich.  _ “No, it really isn’t,” he said. He cleared his throat, trying to imagine how his father might have approached this conversation. Went Tozier was not a man to ever put his foot in his mouth without intention. “I would have fucking died if - Well. Shit, I don’t know. I shouldn’t have done that to you. It wasn’t cool, even if the mystic turtle told me to.”

The boy regarded him again and, this time, Richie thought he could see something whirling in his eyes. Eventually, he said, slowly, “Mystic turtles don’t always understand the nuisances of the human experience.”

“No,” Richie croaked.  _ Thank fuck _ . ‘Under the Bridge’ danced in the leaves around them, the kids having fully taken over Bill’s playlist. “Their one downfall. That and plastic six-pack rings.”

A smile flickered on the teenager’s lips. They were dry, his skin a patchwork of freckles and barely-there stubble. Can you feel fondness for yourself? Your younger self? Surely that was narcissism or,  _ shit _ , nostalgia. “I get what you were trying to do,” young Richie said, fingertips worrying at the label on his bottle. “It’s just - It’s just fucking terrifying.”

Richie sucked in a long breath. “I would love to say it gets less so,” he said, trailing off. 

_ Your dirty little secret. _

Was there anything more terrifying, even now? Being rejected. Being abandoned. Forgotten.

_ Missing. That’s my shirt, that’s my hair, that’s my face. _

“Eddie’s avoiding me,” young Richie said, solemnly, and Richie looked up at him, taking in the flexing of his jaw. “He hates me.” He was sure that the words weren’t meant to sound as wavering as they did.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Richie replied. “I promise, he doesn’t. My Eddie doesn’t hate me and they’re the same person, right?”

“Does your Eddie know? About -?” 

Young Richie’s eyes were wide as he looked at him; hopeful, almost. Richie grimaced. “No.”

The kid blinked. Sighed. “Well, then.”

Around them, the Loser’s had split off so naturally that Richie thought the kids might have no idea how planned it had all been. Ben was tucked near the speaker, crouched close and hands spread wildly in front of him as he explained something to his younger self, who was clearly enraptured. In the middle, Bev had her phone out and was scrolling away while showing the younger girl something on the screen. They both grinned wide, nodding, and Richie heard the teenager sing the first few lines of a song he recognised,  _ ‘I get up in the evening, and I ain’t got nothing to say’ _ . The two Bills stood facing each other, far away beyond the reach of the music. Richie quickly looked away, sure that whatever was going on over there was not something for him. Mike, however, was loudly declaring to Stan and teenage Mike exactly what route he was taking to get to the East Coast, and Richie watched the younger Mike nodding along with wide, bright eyes.

And then, Eddie. Younger Eddie had shuffled to the side to give the older man space on the bean bag. The two of them perched together made for an odd sight, Richie thought; so different and yet so inherently the same. Eddie had that expression on his face that he typically reserved for Richie when he had to explain something so obvious it pained him to say it out loud. Teenage Eddie’s skin seemed to have lost some of its colour and Richie tried very hard not to read into  _ that _ too hard. He was talking back to Eddie, too, though, which was good, right? Frowning a little and pouting at Eddie’s responses. 

_ Fuck, what were the two of them saying? _

“You should talk to him,” Richie said, his gaze sliding away from Eddie towards his own feet. 

He could hear the smirk in the teenager’s words as young Richie replied, “And everyone keeps telling me I’m not funny.”

“In the future,” Richie started. “Everyone’s always talking about communication. ‘Communication is key’. It’s a whole thing.”

“You talk to your Eddie, then.”

Richie hesitated for a second too long and the younger smiled like the cat who’d got the cream. “Okay,” he admitted, raising his hands. “We’re both incompetent.  _ Congratulations, you played yourself. _ How about we, you know, support each other.”

Young Richie pouted, eyes narrowed. “This is weird and I don’t like it.”

“Wow, I’m infuriating,” Richie mumbled. “I will talk to mine, if you talk to yours.”

Silence. And then, softly, “What if he hates me?”

“He won’t,” Richie replied, more confidently than he felt. “It might not - It might not work out like we want it to, but he won’t hate you. Promise.”

“Pinky promise?”

It occurred to him then that, if he’d been anybody else, young Richie would have hidden the vulnerability in his words then with a joke, or a vulgar comment, or a voice. Maybe this would work, he thought. Maybe him being here would actually make a difference for the good.

“Yeah,” he said, curling his finger around the teen’s outstretched pinky. 

Over the way raucous laughter came from the small group huddled at the base of the maple tree. Stan, in the middle, surrounded by young Bill, both Ben’s and an older Mike, was flushed to the tips of his ears. Arms outstretched, waving in front of him, he seemed to be performing a dramatic reenactment of his rescuing Bill in IT’s lair. Older Bill had split his drink down himself and was attempting to dry himself while still chuckling away.

A few feet away, both Eddie’s watched. Richie felt his chest tighten at the way older Eddie was listening, wide-eyed, the first time he’d heard the story. He looked like a child again, under the starlight, there in the Barrens, like he’d been when Richie had first realised how much he’d loved him. 

He caught the eye of the younger Eddie, who -  _ God  _ \- must have been staring right at him. The kid blushed and immediately turned back to Stan. 

_ What kind of John Hughes bullshit was this? _ Richie asked himself, before quickly shutting down that trail of thought. Far too hopeful. The summer air was clearly getting to him. 

Young Richie leaned in closer to him and said, out of the side of his mouth, “You didn’t mean right now though, right?”

Riding the crest of an awkwardly honking laugh, Richie spluttered. “God, no.”

The kid nodded, “Cool, cool,” and sipped again at his beer.

_ Jesus fuck _ .  _ I promised this fucking kid. I’m going to have to fucking do it. _

It was a thought that Richie attempted to push down as the night drew on. By the time Ben tugged at his hands, leading him into the middle of the clearing to dance, he’d drunk enough to dull the simmering worry. The kids looked on, embarrassed and endeared, as the adult Losers crowded closer to each other, singing along to ‘Africa’ at horrific volumes. 

By the second chorus, they were all on their feet, too, jumping into the air. “Happy birthday, Stan!” someone shouted. Combined with the others’ laughter, their jumbled voices floated into the night sky. 

“ _ It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you! _ ” Mike yelled, his bottle raised in the air. They all piled in close, grinning stupidly. Richie curled his fingers around the fabric of Eddie’s jacket. If he closed his eyes, it could almost be a dream; something he’d desperately wanted in those twenty-seven years apart, that he could never quite recall. He had it now and, no matter what, he wasn’t letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr masterpost](https://missberrycake.tumblr.com/post/633167580896624640/the-king-is-gone-by-missberrycake-chapter-1)


	4. Under the Surface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters four and five were originally going to be one chapter with an epilogue … but it kept growing, so two chapters it is.
> 
> A further warning for this chapter for Stephen King Bullies™ and one line of intense early-nineties homophobia.

_ “Monday you can fall apart _

_ Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart _

_ Oh, Thursday doesn’t even start _

_ It’s Friday, I’m in love” _

\- The Cure,

‘Friday I’m in Love’

* * *

_ “I hope you are blessed with a heart like a wildflower. _

_ Strong enough to rise again after being trampled upon, _

_ tough enough to weather the worst of the summer storms,  _

_ and able to grow and flourish even in the most broken places.” _

\- Nikita Gill,

‘Hearts Like Wildflowers’

* * *

♜

Richie was back in Neibolt. 

The air was thick, heavy and hot like ash, and blood, and bone. The ground shook beneath his feet. Around him the building was coming down in chunks, cracks like lightning with each fresh fracture.

Running down the corridor to the stairs, Richie stumbled to a halt when the floorboards fell away. He peered over the edge only to find Eddie,  _ his Eddie _ , clinging on to the splintered edge.

“Richie,” Eddie pleaded, eyes wide and fearful. “Richie, take my hand.”

He couldn’t.

“Richie, reach! Just  _ reach _ .”

Eddie grunted, pulling himself up, his hand stretched out wide, ready for Richie to take in his own.

“Please,” he cried. “Please, take it.  _ Richie _ .”

Richie couldn’t move. He couldn’t pull him up. He wasn’t strong enough.

Eddie gasped, the board in his grip crumbling away, and Richie watched him fall down, down, down, into the sewers and the earth below.

All the while, the turtle was there, just beneath the surface; watching, wait -

“ _ Ugh _ ,” Richie awoke gasping, like it had been him buried beneath the earth and debris of that wretched house. “Jesus  _ fuck _ ,” he swore, chest heaving. 

_ It was a dream, Richie. Get a grip. _

Emerging from his tent dazed and frowning -  _ like some kind of hungover sasquatch -  _ Richie made out a number of blurry figures already seated in their makeshift common area as he wiped his glasses on the corner of his sleep shirt. 

“Right,” he started, voice heavy and slow. “Whose house are we sneaking into to get a proper shower today? Oh, hey, Baby Bill.” He stopped at the edge of the circle of chairs, blinking down at the young Bill he found there.

“Hi,” the kid said, scratching his neck and looking like he had reached the level of discomfort that was only really available in your teenage years. “Um, c-can we talk? In puh-puh-private?”

The other five Losers all remained quiet around them, sipping their caffeine from mismatched mugs. “Sure,” Richie said, lifting an arm towards the trees. “Lead the way.”

Young Bill led them further in than Richie had expected, his sweatpants soaking up the morning damp in the grass. 

“What’s this all about, then?” he asked, a nervous current buzzing through him. 

_ It’s only Bill. He’s a child. Chill out. _

“I wanted to a-apologise, about what I said the other day, in the cuh-clubhouse,” Bill said. His fists were clenched at his sides and he was nodding as he spoke, as if he were ticking the words off a rehearsed list. “I’ve already spoken to Richie - er, our Richie - but I should say it to you, too.” He paused and Richie waited as he built himself up. “I’m sorry, it wasn’t - I didn’t mean it. I’m just, er - I get too wuh-worked up about what people think of me, sometimes, I think. I mean, I’m the leader, right? No one’s ever said it, but I know eh-everyone thinks it. I should have dealt with it better. It was s-stupid.” 

The teen bit his lip, as if he were nervous for Richie’s response and,  _ hell _ , Richie thought, he probably was. 

“Well, that’s -” Richie cleared his throat, finding his voice surprisingly wobbly. “Thanks, Big Bill.”

_ Shit, was he going to cry? No, get ahold, Richard.  _ He evidently hadn’t realised how much this kid’s reaction had affected him. 

“It’s fine,” young Bill carried on as Richie composed himself. “All of … All of that stuff. It’s all f-fine with me, I mean.”

Richie smiled at that.  _ Stuff.  _ “Good.” He sniffed, tugging at his nose. “Hey, look, kid, you don’t, er - You don’t have to be perfect, you know, just because you’re the leader or whatever. That’s not why we listen to you.” He bit his lip, wondering if this would help at all. “It’s enough that you try. And that you,” he breathed out a soft laugh, raising a hand gently at Bill, “say sorry when you mess up.”

“Thanks,” the teenager replied. He smiled at Richie after that and Richie realised he’d missed it in this young, bright form.

“All okay?” Ben asked afterwards, when young Bill had waved goodbye and Richie dropped down into the seat in between him and Eddie, accepting the warm mug offered his way.

He grunted. “Big morning already. I forgot what an intense teenager you were,” he said, widening his eyes at Bill. 

Bill laughed. “Well, we all have our moments.”

“You apologised.”

“We figured,” Bev said. 

“I had a good t-talk with him yesterday,” Bill elaborated.

“Did you bully him?” Richie reproached, firing up the impression of their elementary school principal.

“No. Just -” Bill cut himself off. “Can I tell you something?”

“‘Course,” Eddie responded, leaning forward. 

Bill nodded. Frowned. Laughed softly. “Ah,” he hissed. “I’m … _also_ bisexual.”

_ Oh, right. Shit. Dumb fucking teenagers. _

A short breath of laughter burst through the air along with everyone’s chorus of, ‘That’s great, Bill,’ and, ‘Thank you for telling us,’ and, ‘We’re proud of you.’ Everyone turned to Eddie. “Sorry,” he rushed. “It’s great, Bill, seriously, great, just -” He brought his still steaming mug closer and mumbled, “Everywhere you turn.”

“Like the yellow-rumped warbler,” Mike offered, sagely, and Eddie hummed, looking a little dazed. “Stan, last night,” Mike added by way of explanation. Richie nodded. “They’re a new favourite, apparently.”

When Richie turned back to Bev and Ben, he saw matching thoughtful expressions on their faces and felt profoundly like he’d missed something. 

“Well,” he started. “Welcome to the club, Bill. Or, should it be you welcoming me to the club?” He raised his eyebrows at the other man.

“Your membership c-card is in the mail,” Bill said. He winced, shifting in his chair. “It’s not a secret,” he said. “My family know, my wife knows. It just … doesn’t come up a lot.” He chewed on his lip. Sensing that Bill had more he needed to say, Richie bit back on the handful of jokes that had popped into his head. “I thuh-think, actually, I use that as an excuse a lot of the t-time. I should be more …  _ puh-puh-proud _ . Like Stan said.” Bill nodded, wrinkling his nose and glancing around at them all. “I guess I always thought it was just another thing on top of everything else. Like that was my f-fault, too.” He smiled at Richie, a little watery. “It’s really cool to, like, have you here as well,” he said, and Richie found, for the second time that morning, that his eyes were stinging, too. Just a little. 

They finished their breakfast slowly, talking quietly in the morning sun. When Eddie stood up to rinse out their cups in the river (it had stunned them all when Eddie had declared that preferable to leaving the dregs to dry out, but, what was that quote? Eddie contained multitudes) he paused at Bill’s side to curl and arm around him and press a kiss to the top of his head. Bill smiled. Richie tried not to combust. As if to make matters worse, Eddie chose to return to his seat the long way around and, passing behind Richie, ran a hand through his sleep-tangled hair. 

_ God, give me strength.  _

Bill was being brave,  _ young  _ Bill had put on his big boy pants and apologised, teenage Richie was gearing up to face his fears; how could Richie not do the same? 

_ Be true. Be brave. Stand. _

_ Uphold the oath. _

“Ugh,” Bev groaned, stretching her hands above her head as Ben and Bill started to clear up around them. “This is nice, isn’t it? I feel like I should be appreciating being out in nature more.”

“Yeah, well,” Richie let out a long-suffering breath, kicking his legs out in front of him. “You’ll be spending enough time inside mahogany paneled walls with those fancy divorce lawyers.”

“Have you ever been inside a lawyer’s office, Rich? ‘Cause it kind of sounds like you haven’t.”

Richie stuck his tongue out at her, a sentiment which she returned with applaudable enthusiasm. 

Smiling, Mike flicked his chin towards Eddie. “How about you? Is that …” he trailed off, clearly realising what he was actually asking too late. Behind Eddie’s head Bill pulled a suitably awkward face at Mike. 

“Am I planning on divorcing my wife?” Eddie finished for him. 

Mike sent him a chastised smile, though Richie frowned. It hadn’t sounded like Eddie was telling him off.

“Are you?” Richie asked, surprised at his own boldness. 

Eddie simply slid down further in his seat. “I don’t know,” he said. He raised his eyes to the others. “I can’t imagine going back, after - after everything.” His eyes met Richie’s on the ‘everything’. 

It wasn’t as though Richie didn’t know all the shit that Eddie had been through - boy, did he know - but, right then, sitting next to him in their rickety camping chairs, with damp feet and the Kenduskeag rushing over the morning bird song, Richie  _ felt it _ . Like, this kid’s dad had died before he could remember, his mother had stifled and suffocated him in every way a person could. He’d forgotten the people who’d truly loved him, duped into a marriage he evidently didn’t want to be in and, then, to top it all off, he’d had to face up to his own gruesome death. But he was still there. Wishing and hoping and  _ trying _ . 

They were all still there. 

They deserved a fucking break and if Richie finding the courage to tell Eddie how he felt was the only way to do it, then that’s what he was damn well going to do. 

“Well, with any luck, you won’t have to,” Mike said, breaking the heavy moment. “If we do this right.”

Eddie nodded, a slight grimace on his face. He dropped his gaze. “Right.”

“We just have to double down, get the message through,” Mike continued. “Clearly what we’ve done already wasn’t enough.”

“Yeah,” Richie said, almost to himself. His skin was tingling, his eyes still on Eddie as he rose to his feet. The other man jerked forward. “Yeah, we do,” Richie announced. “I’m going to be so Goddamn true, I’m going to be brave as shit. Look at me, I’m already standing! I’m halfway there!”

Was it a little lacking in the bravery if he made his teenage self do it first? Possibly, but Richie was on a schedule, like Mike said. Whatever. He was so ready for this, he didn’t even listen to Eddie’s yell of, “He wasn’t being literal, dipshit!”

_ Not today, Kaspbrak, you have to wait your turn. _ Richie had a teenager’s life to ruin.

♔

Eddie didn’t know why Richie had gone off in such a good mood that morning. Frankly, it unnerved him at a time when he really needed all the nerve he could get. 

The words in Stan’s letter had been whirling in his head all night, tossing and turning, wedged between Mike and Bill. 

_ Be who you want to be. _

Now he was back outside his childhood home, the whole thing seemed so much more difficult than Mike had made it sound. What was he supposed to do? Supposed to say? At Stan’s party the young Eddie had been full to the brim with questions about coming back from the dead. Eddie supposed he could understand that, but he still found himself utterly at a loss as to how to respond. They’d been mainly stupid, ‘Was the turtle there?’ (maybe) ‘Did you see death?’ (no) ‘Did he look like William Sadler?’ (I didn’t see death) before, quietly, with a furtive look around the Barren’s clearing, ‘Did it hurt?’ (silence).

Eddie winced, running a hand across his jaw. Absently, he flexed his right arm.

_Come on, Eddie._ _Be who you want to be._

Of course, that required him to answer the age-old question - who, exactly,  _ did _ he want to be?

The sound of his front door swinging shut pulled him from his spiral. How weird was that? Such an everyday sound, yet so completely entwined with days,  _ weeks _ , spent shut up at home that Eddie couldn’t suppress a shudder. He took a step back, hiding behind the chassis of Mike’s borrowed truck as he spied on his mother coming down the path. 

_ Oh, no _ , he groaned to himself. 

Sure, he was self-aware enough to know that he’d married a replica of his mother, but seeing Sonia Kaspbrak like this, younger, not yet at her peak weight, makeup in place to face the world, he saw it more than ever. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Instead of lingering on it for too long, as soon as his mother’s cream Pacer pulled away from the curb he jogged across the road and up the overgrown footpath. His mother had lived in fear of burglars and rapists and kidnappers lying in wait to gobble Eddie up, but that had never stopped her from leaving a spare key under the ugly fishing frog ornament at the corner of the front lawn. She was an expert at making herself believe what she wanted, Eddie thought, grimly. 

Sneaking into the house, the rush of sights and scents and,  _ God _ , even the stupid ticking of the clock in the corridor crashed through him and he had to stop in the middle of the hall to take several deep breaths. 

“Eddie!” he called, somewhat stiltedly, then more firmly, with intent. He was there on a mission, after all. “Eddie!”

A faint banging came from upstairs and he headed up, a little gingerly, to find his younger self, cheeks flushed red, eyes glistening and bright, struggling to pull down a suitcase from the top of his bedroom wardrobe.

“What’s all this?” he asked, reaching up over the kid’s head to drop the offending item onto the small twin bed. 

“I’m leaving,” the boy said.

“You’re  _ what _ ?”

“Don’t try and stop me.”

“I’m -”

“I’m going,” young Eddie continued, nostrils flaring as he flapped his arms around the room. “I can’t be here, I can’t. Not with her, not with - I’m - I’m  _ leaving. _ ”

Eddie stepped hesitantly closer. “Yeah?”

Perhaps his measured tone caught the boy off guard, as he stopped mid-gesticulation, dropping his arms by his side. “Yeah.”

“Alright,” Eddie nodded, eyes surveying the room.  _ Shit.  _ “Let’s go.”

Young Eddie blinked. “Really?”

And, yeah, maybe it was a mad idea, but, hell, Eddie couldn’t think of a reason why not. All he could think of, actually, was the faint chanting of  _ do it, do it, do it,  _ circling in his mind.

“Yeah,” he rushed out. “Fucking really. I got Mike’s truck outside. We’re doing this.”

Powering through the sense of second-hand panic coursing through him, Eddie joined the teenager in pulling out his essentials; clothes, a few books, cassettes, his favourite comics. He hadn’t been in this room for so long and now, to look on it in this whirlwind of movement, it was like seeing it for the first time. The desk where he’d slaved over a diorama for History class, only for Belch Higgins to knock it out of his hands five minutes before the lesson. The pinboard where he’d dutifully stuck all the stubs from their trips to the Aladdin over the years, until his mother had made him take them down, claiming it was all trash anyway. The bottle full of brightly coloured sand on the windowsill - a present from Bill - originally curated into a rainbow of stripes until Richie had knocked it over. Stan had almost wet himself laughing as Richie had struggled to collect the sand back up from the carpet, all while assuring everyone in the room that he had the whole situation under control.

_ God _ . How cruel that those years had been taken away from them for so long.

While young Eddie busied himself, sat crossed-legged on the floor, folding up a mismatch of colourful t-shirts, Eddie himself scoured the shelves for anything they’d missed. Almost as if he’d been drawn to it, his eyes immediately fell to the top shelf of his rickety old bookcase. On it, innocuous and dust-free - much like everything else in his room - was a small, red model Ferrari.

Eddie ground his jaw, dropping down to the floor next to the kid and starting on the pile of trousers. “You want to tell me why?” he asked.

“What do you mean, why?” the younger replied, not taking his eyes off the suitcase he was currently arranging. “You know why.”

“But, specifically. I mean, _ I _ never left.”

“She - She -” young Eddie stuttered, pouted. “She’s awful,” he settled on, turning to Eddie with a stiff jaw. Christ, he looked so young. Just a kid. “I can’t trust her, can I? After what you said, about forgetting, and her just doing it all again. She apologised before, you know,” he said, voice rising in pitch. 

“I know,” Eddie reassured.

“Said she’d learned her lesson, that she wouldn’t do it again, that’s she’d fucking let me -” The teen cut himself off with a small shake of the head. “And then she’s just gonna do it all again. She’s a liar.”

Regarding the young boy for a while, Eddie thought, maybe his work was already done. This kid, just sixteen still - always the youngest, always the baby of the group - was so much better than he’d ever been. Leaving his mother? If he could do that, he could do anything.

“She said some shit about the others,” young Eddie carried on, more slowly now, as he rubbed at the collar of a particularly soft-looking jumper.

“Well, I mean, that’s nothing new.”

“No, but, now it’s different.”

Eddie didn’t ask him to elaborate. He knew precisely what he meant.

He stared at the bottle of sand again, all different coloured grains swirling together. He’d never told Richie, but he had actually preferred it that way. He’d given the other boy shit for it, of course - any opportunity to bring Richie Tozier down a peg was an opportunity worth taking - but after the other Losers had left that evening, he’d placed the bottle back on his windowsill and smiled. 

It was like them. The Losers. They’d always be a part of each other; their different colours colliding and merging to make something whole.

“I’m proud of you,” Eddie said into the studious quiet of the room.

Young Eddie snorted. “Shut up.” 

“No, seriously.”

The young boy looked up at Eddie then, top lip raised in confusion. “You  _ are _ me.”

_ No, not really. Not any more.  _ Eddie hummed, folding up a pair of acid wash jeans. “Not quite.”

“I’m you with a -” Young Eddie stopped himself, biting on his lip. 

“What?” 

The kid slumped, rolling his eyes before mumbling, “I’m you with a positive adult role model.”

“I have never been called that before,” Eddie replied, dimly. He frowned. “Don’t let her drag you back, Eddie,” he said, seized with a sudden need to say the words. “Your illnesses are bullshit, alright? No matter how upset she gets, what she says, ‘cause she’ll try to manipulate you, make you feel guilty. Don’t listen. You’re not obliged to stay with her. It’s not your job to look after her. She’s your mother, she was supposed to look after you and she didn’t, she -” The words caught in his throat for a second. “ _ She _ failed  _ you _ , alright, not the other way around.”

The teenager was silent for a moment, gnawing at his lip before he nodded and said, quietly, “Yeah, okay.”

Eddie let out a breath, the tightness in his chest releasing, just a little. “Does Richie know you’re coming?” he asked, attempting to steer the conversation to something a little less dramatic.

“Richie?”

“Yeah, you’re - Aren’t you going to the Toziers’?”

Again, Eddie bit his lip. “I was thinking, Big Bill’s,” he said, scratching at his head. He looked bashful as he shrugged. “Or Stan’s, maybe, I don’t know.”

_ That was weird. Or, was it weird? He had been shy around Richie sometimes. Not often, but some things with him were just … too much. _

“Why not Richie’s?” he asked, hoping he sounded casual. “It’s not because of the bisexual thing, right, because we talked about -”

“No! No, not that,” young Eddie rushed. He groaned. “It’s just, we're best friends.”

“So? What would be better than living with your best friend?”

“It would ruin it,” the kid whined.

“I don’t -” Eddie frowned. “You spend half your time there anyway,” he said, utterly baffled. “Friends live together all the time. Hell, that’s what marriage is.”

“I don’t want to marry Richie,” young Eddie snapped.

Eddie looked over at him properly then; took in the flush in his cheeks, the set of his jaw. 

“I didn’t say that,” he said, carefully.

Young Eddie huffed and slumped down, eventually mumbling, “He’ll get sick of me.”

“No, he won’t.” The kid sent him a look as if to say, ‘What do you know?’ and, he supposed, what  _ did  _ he know? That feeling that he’d known so well in his twenties, his thirties, sprung upon him then; that somehow he was forgetting something important, something vital and fundamental and irreplaceable. What was it? What was he missing?

“It does hurt,” he said, half whispering. “Dying.” He frowned down at the pair of long sports socks in his hands. “I can’t really - I can’t remember everything, but I remember it hurting.” 

He looked up at the boy who was staring back at him, wide-eyed. “Shit.” 

“But you get through it,” Eddie powered on. “Remember when you broke your arm? You survived that.” He cocked his head, remembering what Richie had said to him down in the sewers that had made him feel so much better. “You’re braver than you think,” he said, softly. “Some things hurt and some things are scary, and sometimes you don’t know if everything will all work out, but you still have to do them.” He chuckled. “Trust me, I’m an expert.” He thought about it, then; about all the times he’d taken the safer option, erred on the side of caution, taken the  _ appropriate _ precautions. He shook his head, sneering a little. “That’s fucking  _ living _ , man. I haven’t been living for the past thirty years, I’ve been fucking sleepwalking.”

Young Eddie didn’t respond, but Eddie figured he’d got the message. 

_ Don’t end up like me, kid; alone and tired and full of regrets. _

It didn’t take them much longer after that; Eddie didn’t have that much that he couldn’t be parted with. They were about to leave, on the threshold of the bedroom, when the teenager swore and hurried back. Eddie watched as the younger stood on his tiptoes and plucked the Ferrari model from the high shelf. He dropped to the floor by the bed, dragged out a dusty old shoebox and, quick as anything, threw the model inside, joining Eddie back at the door with the box tucked under his arm. He raised his eyebrows at the older man, the ‘and what?’ left unspoken. He didn’t need to speak, of course. As soon as he’d reached under the bed Eddie had known what he’d been retrieving. His little box of hidden treasures.

Thinking about it now, as Eddie shoved the small suitcase into the back of the truck, quickly running over the route to Stan’s old place in his mind, it wasn’t really a box of treasures, was it? It was a box of Richie. All the things he could keep and touch and remember.

“Can I be something else, do you think?” young Eddie asked from the passenger seat as Eddie himself jumped in.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

The teen grimaced, nose wrinkling. “Like, not a Risk Analyst?”

“Oh,” Eddie looked out of the windscreen for a second before turning back and smiling. “Shit, yeah. Be whatever you want, Eddie.”

Young Eddie nodded, gripping his shoebox of treasures closer. “I want to be a mechanic, or something,” he said. “Build cars, make things, you know? Put them together.”

“Get your hands dirty?”

“Mike’s Grandad let me mess with his old Enduro, one time,” he said, almost shyly. “Got it going again and all.”

“Yeah.” Eddie nodded, turning the ignition. He grinned. “That sounds awesome.”

♜

When Richie was very young, he’d desperately wanted a younger brother. Someone that had to stick with him, no matter what. It had gotten so bad at one point, he thought it was around Christmas, maybe when he was six or seven, that he’d held a protest, barricading himself inside his parent’s bedroom until they relented.

That was before he’d met Stan, of course. Before Bill and Eddie and all the other Losers. 

This wasn’t like that, not  _ really _ , but as he listened to his teenage self narrate the actions of a young couple walking ahead of them along Canal Street, clearly on a first date, he thought perhaps it wasn’t too far off. 

“ _ And he’s misjudged the lean in! It’s not gone down well, mates, not at all. He’ll have to take a second and regroup, _ ” the kid said, for some unknown reason attempting a version of Paul Hogan in ‘Crocodile Dundee’. 

He turned to Richie then with a happy smile on his face and said, apropos of absolutely nothing, “ _ You call that a knife? _ ”

Richie smirked. Why hadn’t he gone into voice acting or something? That’s right, there was no _celebrity_ in voice acting. ‘Don’t you want people to know your name, Richie?’ his agent had said to him, twenty-three and dazzled by the Hollywood sun.

“So, you got a boyfriend, then?” the teen asked, jumping up to sit on the canal side wall - an ugly cement thing that had caused quite a stir in the local paper when it had first been erected. 

“‘Boyfriend’?” Richie laughed. He kept on laughing, though he wasn’t entirely sure what at. “No. You know I’m in the closet, kiddo.”

The other side of the street was busier, kids making the most of the summer break, old dears hobbling down the sidewalk at a painfully slow pace. As they stood, a group of teenagers in leather jackets that must have been far too hot for the warm day ran down the street, weaving in and out of the parked cars, laughing and shouting. 

“But, on the sly,” the young Richie scowled. “You’re, like, a hundred. You still haven’t …” he trailed off, as if he wasn’t sure what words came next. 

“No, I haven’t,” Richie sighed. “That’s show business, baby.”

Young Richie grunted, pulling a crumpled box of Nerds from his pocket. “At least you’re funny,” he mumbled, before necking a handful. He pulled an exaggerated face at the taste. Richie had always done that, initially just to make sure everyone was paying attention to him. After a while it became a habit he couldn’t knock, even when he was alone.

Should he tell him? They were supposed to be being honest. 

“I’m not,” he said, simply. Young Richie’s eyes widened a little, head cocked, sounding him out. “I’m not funny. I don’t write my own stuff, there’s a team … Well, whatever, it’s not me. It’s pretty crappy, most of it.” He cleared his throat. “Success,” he started. “Isn’t what you think. It’s not, like, the path to happiness, or whatever. I’d be happier with my friends. If I’d have been honest.” He let out a breath, pushing his glasses further up his nose. If it wasn’t his old friend, self-pity.  _ Where have you been, buddy? You’ve missed all the excitement. _ Coughing again he smiled at the younger boy, “But that’s what you’re going to do, right? Beauty and grace and Miss United States.”

Young Richie did not look impressed. “So, you’re miserable?” he said.

“Yeah, dude. How have you not got this already? That’s the whole reason we’re here. We’re all fucking miserable.”

“Yeah, but -” the kid pouted. “Fuck.”

Taking pity on him, Richie shuffled closer, nudging at his shoulder. “This isn’t trying to turn you into me,” he said, lowly. “It’s us trying to turn you into something else. Something  _ better _ .”

The teen clicked his tongue, looking away from Richie and down the canal for a moment. “I’ve been trying to do that for a while,” he said, words stained before turning back with a sullen expression. “Doesn’t fucking work.”

Of course he’d hit a nerve. How could he not? He’d spent all of his teenage years trying to retrain his brain, retrain his body to want something else,  _ be _ something else. Every time he’d fail. Every single time he’d come back to the same thing, like he was some kind of addict, some kind of junkie who couldn’t be trusted around his friends.

“Well, sure, not the way you’re doing it,” he mumbled. Turning to his younger self once more he tried to adopt a moderate tone and said, “What do you want, Richie? What do you  _ really  _ want?”

The kid blinked. “You know what I want,” he replied, and the sheer candidness of his words stole the breath from Richie’s lungs. “I want to be real.”

“Then reach out and fucking take it, Pinocchio.”

_ Richie, take my hand. Just reach. _

“How?” he asked.

“Talk to your friends, like we said!” Richie almost yelled. “Tell Eddie! Sure, even if he doesn’t -”

“He’ll think I’m joking,” teen Richie cut him off.

Richie slumped. He pressed his hands into the concrete under his palms, feeling the rough surface against his skin. “You could show him the Kissing Bridge,” he said, quietly.

“Oh, fuck, no,” young Richie laughed, looking at him with a wide-eyed, appalled expression. “Nobody was ever meant to see that.”

“But, I mean,” Richie said, words thick and slow. “It was for him, though, wasn’t it?  _ Really _ ?” He shrugged. “Why shouldn’t he see it?”

As the teenager seemed to be mulling it over, cracking his candy between his teeth, an aggressive shout came from across the road. Instantly, a kind of icy dread shot up Richie’s spine. 

If the Loser’s had hoped that after the death of most of Henry’s Bower’s gang, and the incarceration of the boy himself, that Derry would become a bully-less paradise, they’d been sorely mistaken. It had taken a few months, sure, but there was always some other numbskull to claim the prize spot. 

In this case, Davy ‘Sully’ Sullivan. A grade above, Davy was, though perhaps not as inherently terrifying as Bower’s, certainly cut from the same cloth. That is to say, his hair was cut into a mullet and he generally spoke in curses and slurs. 

A real delight. Richie was overjoyed to see him again, truly. 

“Hey, well, lookie here, if it isn’t little Dicky boy,” Sullivan sniggered, the kid next to him who Richie couldn’t place for the life of him laughing along stupidly. “Who’s this, hey Dicky?” he said, knocking his chin towards Richie. “This your boyfriend? I heard fags like you were into younger -”

When it came, Richie couldn’t quite believe it, just stared, dumbstruck, at the scene playing before him. 

“Fuck  _ off _ , Sully,” teenage Richie yelled, jumping off the wall and surging forward, arms waving and shirt fluttering behind him in the breeze. “So what if I am a fucking flamer, huh? Why you so interested? Gotta crush on me?”

“What?” Sullivan spat out, stumbling back in surprise. “ _ No _ , I’m not a fucking faggot -”

“I hate to break it to you,  _ pal _ , but you could be the last person on earth and I’d still rather stick my fucking head in a blender, alright? Fucking beat it!”

Silence dawned for a beat. Sullivan glared, neck and ears flushing red. Richie grimaced.  _ This wasn’t going to end well.  _ Even at eighteen, Sullivan had some serious bulk to him, and Richie was old and tired. 

“Er -” he began, somewhat half-heartedly.

“You better hope I don’t catch you,” Sullivan said, voice a deadly whisper. 

Richie really didn’t need the advice when his younger self rushed, “Run! Fucking,  _ run _ .” before legging it down the sidewalk. 

Sullivan and his crony in hot pursuit, Richie kept on the kid Richie’s heels, who was laughing hysterically. “I’m forty years old, dude,” he heard himself yell. “Why am I running from a Goddamn teenager!?”

Young Richie led them sweating and panting into Freese’s department store, where the pair immediately slowed down, ducking low behind an aisle of decorative cake stands. 

“I hate you, you know that?” he wheezed, clutching at his side. Beyond the window, Sullivan ran past the store door, heading hell for leather down the street. 

Young Richie cackled. “I hate you, too.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Fine,” the boy huffed, pulling off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. “I’ll show him the stupid engraving,” he said. 

Richie grinned over at him before dropping his hands to his thighs and sucking in some desperately needed air. 

~

Richie kicked the front door closed behind him with his foot, arms full of pizza. Oddly stirring music floated from down the hallway and Richie frowned. __

_ Oh, Bill.  _

Crossing the threshold of his childhood living room, Richie was greeted by the sight of all the Losers - young and old - hunched around a small, colourful piece of board in the middle of the carpet, tiny pieces placed carefully on top. 

“No, Mike!” came Bev’s betrayed cry. “What about the Treaty of Lonmarsh?”

“I’m going rogue,” young Mike sniggered, knocking several of Bev’s armies off the board.

Richie bit down on a smirk. He hadn’t played Risk since he was … well, since he was about seventeen.  _ A bunch of losers.  _ Definitely Bill’s idea, though. Who else would have the ‘Lord of the Rings’ soundtrack on their phone ready to go?

“Alright, fellowship of the fucking Hasbro corporation,” Richie started, stepping over several stretched out legs to drop the boxes on the coffee table. After a second he lifted the pile once more and covered the table with the tv-guide. _There you go, mom_ , he thought. _You’re welcome._ At least his parents were going to be away until the morning. What they didn’t know had never hurt them before. “Your benevolent God has returned with sustenance.”

“You say that like little Richie here isn’t wiping the floor with us,” Ben muttered, wincing as he stood up. 

“It’s called  _ talent _ , Haystack,” teenage Richie mocked.

Young Eddie scoffed, spread out across the floor on his stomach, socked feet swinging behind him. “It’s  _ called _ strategy,” he said, reaching out to flick the arm of teenage Richie’s glasses. “As if you’re not top of the class half the time.”

The players agreed a ceasefire for the consumption of pizza and Richie peeled off into the kitchen to find Eddie leaning against the back door, staring out into the garden. He pulled two mugs out from the top shelf.

“Coffee, M’lord,” he said, softly, a few minutes later, coming up to Eddie’s side.

The other man startled, just a little, before drawing his eyebrows together. “After -”

“I know, after six o’clock,” Richie dismissed, shoving the mug into Eddie’s hands. “It’s decaf, you gremlin.”

“Thanks.”

“Little Eds is settling in, then?”

Eddie nodded, swallowing. “Turns out Andrea and Donald have never been huge fans of Sonia.”

“‘Sonia’,” Richie sounded the word out. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” At the bottom of the garden, beyond where the sprinkler sputtered across the lawn, a small bird - a goldfinch, maybe? They were birds, right? - landed on the bird feeder Richie’s mom had bought the spring before. His dad had spent a whole weekend painting it a ‘celery ice’ green at her behest. Richie remembered him spilling the paint tin across the driveway. He’d earned ten bucks clearing that up of an afternoon. “Hey,” he said, turning back to Eddie. “How come you didn’t come here?”

Eddie - far from the shrug that Richie had been expecting or, heaven forbid, the answer that he feared most of all -  _ smiled.  _ “He,  _ ah - _ He said he didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“Aw,” Richie said, touched. “Capellini.”

“Cape - No, I don’t care.”

“Like spaghetti, but smaller.” The evening light doused Eddie’s skin in a golden sheen. What had he looked like in his twenties? His thirties? Did he ever grow his hair out long? Did he have friends? Acquaintances? Was there anyone in his life that looked at him and saw what Richie saw? Did he scowl at anyone’s jokes the way he scowled at Richie’s? Even as the other man rolled his eyes Richie was overwhelmed.  _ He loved him. He’d loved him his whole life. _ “It would be impossible, by the way,” he rasped.

“Huh?” Eddie quirked his eyebrow, eyes wide - wary, almost, as if he were waiting for something off-colour. 

Richie leaned closer, letting their shoulders touch. “To ruin this.”

Eddie laughed. As he sipped his drink, mumbling a, “Lord knows you’ve tried,” Richie just carried on; loving and praying and hoping.

“Do you remember that model car you bought me?” Eddie said after a moment, peering over at him. “For my birthday?”

It took Richie a second to recall it. There’d been so many birthdays, so many gifts he’d given with far too much thought put into them. “Oh, yeah,” he said slowly, remembering open windows and bedcovers warmed by body heat. “Spent all the money I earnt mowing lawns over the summer on that, it was a proper collectors thing.”

The look Eddie gave him then almost had him blushing. “Really?” he asked, curiously. “Why’d you do that?”

“You’re worth it,” Richie shrugged. Sighed. Straightened his shoulders. “There’s a lot of things I’d do for you,” he said, too quietly.

Eddie only hummed, still regarding him intently. “I might hold you to that,” he said after a moment. “I’m planning on getting divorced soon, you know, I’ll be calling in all my favours.”

“I’ll be at your beck and call,” Richie smiled as Eddie relaxed. His stomach was performing a strange trapeze show.  _ Was he relieved or not? _

“I was thinking more your spare bedroom,” Eddie said.

Richie nodded. “That as well.”

The evening wore on, the Losers continuing to provide free therapy for their younger selves -  _ right, because only a fool would pay for this _ \- and a last-minute alliance between Stan and Bill ripping the Risk trophy from teen Richie’s fingertips. After that it didn’t take long for the kids to find the beer Ben had stashed in the fridge - honestly, that man was coming out of left field as an enabler of teenage rebellion - and Richie found himself relegated to the floor, leant up against Maggie Tozier’s prized mahogany cabinet. 

Just as he was about to speak up about how these kids needed to respect their elders, Mike dropped to the floor next to him. 

The two of them watched as young Eddie downed a vodka shot teenage Bev had just handed him. Only an hour before he’d been eyeing the same drink with suspicion; he’d always stuck to beer, Richie recalled, had done all the time Richie had known him. His eyes flicked to the older Eddie, on the couch laughing with Bev and Bill, beer in hand.

“I always liked it here,” Mike said, rapping his knuckles against the cabinet door above them. 

“Yeah, so did I.” Richie rolled his head against the wood to face him. “Even, like, when IT was at its worst I always figured it couldn’t get me here. Bullshit, obviously, look at Bill and Bev, but,” he trailed off. Nowhere had been safe and yet his home always had been. He was lucky. 

“I don’t know,” Mike offered, shifting so that his legs were stretched out in front of him. “Bill and Bev’s homes were full of not so pleasant emotions, weren’t they? Not safe havens like this.”

“Eddie doesn’t agree,” Richie muttered, immediately scrunching his eyes closed, rubbing at them. “Shit, sorry, ignore me.”

He heard Mike breathe, slow and steady. Patient and strong.

“You should go for it, you know,” he said. Richie groaned. “Just, if you wanted my opinion.”

“Go for what?” he asked. He knew.

“With Eddie.”

Richie took a swig of his beer. Teenage him had a plan, the whole deal with this get together - at least for the Richie’s of this world - was to get Eddie in the best headspace, the most relaxed, most calm, to receive such potentially awkward news. Middle-aged Richie was having more trouble. “I’m working up to it,” he mumbled. “It’s not as easy as all that.”

At his words, Mike laughed, a deep rumble in his chest. “You always were someone who needed a push.” When Richie let out an indignant scoff (he wasn’t serious - Mike was, as usual, horribly correct) the other man added, “Nothing big, just a little nudge in the right direction. Once you get going, though, you’re hard to catch up with.”

“You know, sometimes, Mikey, I really have no idea what you’re saying.”

On the other side of the room young Bill, Stan and young Eddie were laughing and waving their arms about, cheering at young Ben to finish his drink. It was a bizarre sight. So …  _ teenage _ .

“Just tell him,” Mike said, nudging him. “Commit to the bit, Richie.”

“I’ll commit  _ you  _ to the -”

“Rich?”

Riche and Mike looked up at the teenage Richie, whose skin looked about three shades paler than usual.

“Yeah?” Richie replied. 

“I’m - I’m gonna -” the kid swallowed visibly. “I’m - Shit, just, you’re sure this will be okay?”

_ Oh, shit. Right. _ Richie pushed himself up straighter. He looked from young Eddie, still laughing at young Ben, to  _ his _ Eddie, smiling and nodding at whatever Bev was saying to him. He felt a familiar sickness sneak up his throat.  _ It would be fine. He’d told the kid it was going to be fine, so it was going to be fine. Everything would be okay. _

“... yes,” he said, drawing out the word so long that next to him, Mike groaned. 

Though it hadn’t seemed possible, even more colour dropped from teenage Richie’s cheeks. “Oh, fuck, you’re -”

“I  _ am _ ,” Richie interrupted, pointing at the kid. He clapped Mike’s shoulder. “Mike here was just telling me how he thought it was a great idea.”

Without missing a beat, Mike nodded. “I was,” he said, smiling warmly at the teenager. “I do.”

The kid didn’t speak, just swallowed, turned on his heels and walked towards teenage Eddie like a man sentenced to the gallows. 

Richie watched. It was almost as if he were underwater; all the sounds in the room had gone muffled, all he could really hear was his own heartbeat, distorted laughter. Mike’s hand squeezed his arm. Across the way, the striped shadows from the window blinds crossing his face, teenage Richie pulled the young Eddie to the side, head bent low, whispering. 

Teenage Eddie stumbled back and Richie’s heart might have actually stopped. 

“... in a bit,” he heard the kid mutter, words a little slurred. “I just want to - I just have to,  _ before, _ ” young Eddie trailed off then, scurrying over to the side table and hastily pouring several shots worth of vodka into his glass. Richie didn’t miss the way his bright eyes flickered towards Stan. 

Before Richie could panic about what the hell  _ that _ meant, Eddie spun around, raising his glass in the air. “I - I - I have to say something. I have to, to  _ say _ something to you,” he said, and his words were  _ definitely _ slurred now, cheeks flushed. 

“Alright, Eds,” teenage Richie replied. He was holding himself oddly and Richie knew that it was a very deliberate attempt at seeming casual. It wasn’t working. 

“‘Eds’. Agent Kaspbrak,” Eddie giggled nonsensically. Everyone was watching him now. He frowned, as if thinking hard, before he eventually said, “I - So, I like you.”

The room was quiet. Cars passed in the distance, Richie’s great-grandfather’s old clock ticked in the hallway, the conversation of a couple walking on the sidewalk outside came muffled through the window.

“What?” teenage Richie said, gormlessly.

“Oh, my God,” young Bev half gasped behind her hand.

“I like you!” young Eddie repeated. Richie was sure that if he’d had the balance for it, he would have stamped his foot. 

“Eddie, are you  _ drunk? _ ” teenage Richie responded, all the colour rushing back to his skin now. “I know you like me, we’re best fr-”

“No! Richie! Fucking - I like you, you fucking _ shit brain _ -”

“It doesn’t  _ sound  _ like you like me.”

“- like, properly like you. You know what I mean.”

Young Eddie glared at the teenager. 

Taking pity on him, young Ben leaned over slowly. “Richie,” he whispered, though it came out as more of a shout. “I think he means -”

“Yeah, I got it, thanks,” young Richie cut him off. He glanced at older Richie, who couldn’t do anything other than nod.

“Someone worth holding onto,” Eddie muttered, eyes still a little unfocused. He pitched forward and, for a second, Richie thought he was going to fall. 

Instead, the young Eddie grabbed onto teenage Richie’s shirt collar and pulled him down into a kiss. 

It was decidedly odd watching your own first kiss, Richie thought, dimly. It looked very much like his teenage self had forgotten how to move, at least for the first few moments. After that, he responded with enough vigour that Richie had a vague feeling that he should be embarrassed. He dared to look over to the couch where older Eddie sat. The other man was staring, mouth agape. 

Richie turned back. 

“I mean,” teenage Richie rasped, when young Eddie finally pulled away. “I didn’t say I liked you back.”

Immediately, young Eddie’s eyes widened and Richie grabbed one of the discarded pizza boxes and chucked it at his teenage self. 

“It was a joke!” the younger yelled to a chorus of groans. He was laughing, his smile so wide it looked like it must hurt. Richie was shocked to find a similar smile tugging at his own lips. “I was joking! Of course I -” Young Richie leaned his head closer to Eddie’s. “That was what I wanted to talk to you about. You know, in  _ private _ .”

Young Eddie pouted. “I am quite drunk,” he said, loudly. When teenage Richie giggled, he shoved him. “I was nervous.”

“Yeah,” the kid said, though Richie could barely hear it above the sudden yells of the rest of the young Losers, who - evidently happy they had the all-clear - began pelting the pair with random objects and jeering. In the chaos, Richie saw his Eddie push up from the couch and leave the room. He blinked at Bev, who only stared back, apologetic. The sound of the front door clicking shut seemed much louder, even in the cacophony of noise. 

From somewhere within the carnage, teenage Eddie emerged, hurtling towards the lavatory, hand clamped to his mouth. 

The others grimaced at each other. 

“Gross,” Stan summed up. 

The other boy reemerged moments later looking rather sheepish. 

Teenage Richie sighed, though he evidently couldn’t keep the pleased-as-punch expression off his face. “Yeah. Come on, Spagheds,” he said, fondly, curling an arm around Eddie’s waist. “Let’s get you home.”

“Can I just ... stay here tonight?” the other whined. 

“Sure.” 

“You think he’ll ruh-remember?” young Bill asked, dubiously.

Teenage Richie grinned, sparing Richie a glance. “I’ll remind him,” he replied simply, leading young Eddie out of the room. 

“Yeah,” Richie muttered to himself. He closed his eyes and let his head knock against the cupboard door. If only it were that easy all the time. 

♔

He shouldn’t have left, what was Richie going to think of him? What would the rest of the Losers think of him? But he just - He just - 

Eddie tried to take in a calming breath, it was a lost cause, though, his throat constricting like a vice, breath dragging and tearing its way up. He stumbled onwards, desperate to get  _ away _ . The street danced before him as he marched up West Broadway, only a vague idea of where he was going. His skin was sticky and hot beneath his clothes, pins and needles stabbing at his fingertips. 

_ Come on, Eddie,  _ he thought, sucking in another rattling breath. 

_ Not now, not now, not now _ . 

“You don’t even have asthma, you fucking idiot!” he yelled at himself. 

This was so stupid, so  _ Goddamn _ stupid. It was just - It was - He’d kissed Richie. Not  _ him _ him, sure, but he’d done it.

How could something like this creep up on him from out of nowhere? Surely he would have known? Surely?

The immediate ‘Don’t call me Shirley’ sounding in his head had Richie’s voice - who else’s? - and he let out a hysterical laugh, wiping sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. 

Almost at the market now, the turning by the old Tracker Brothers’ house loomed in the distance. They’d trodden this path so many times, through the years. 

And, alright, Eddie could understand his ignorance in his youth, perhaps. It was the eighties, his mother was who she was, and, in spite of his colourful language, Eddie had always been a little behind everyone else when it came to ... pursuing romance. It had just never been something he’d thought about. He’d had enough fucking going on, hadn’t he?

But - But, surely, he would have realised before he was practically fucking  _ forty years old _ that - That maybe he - That it might be - 

He groaned. But, he’d slept with women, hadn’t he? Even before Myra - oh, Jesus fucking Christ, _ Myra. _ Even before her, he’d - Well. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been overly enthusiastic, but some people were like that, weren’t they? Eddie had just never been particularly interested in relationships that way. That’s why he and Myra had worked so well.

But what if - 

He tried to think about it, objectively, as the sidewalk turned into dirt beneath his feet. 

A faceless man; waking him up in bed in the morning, laughing with him while they prepared an evening meal, walking down the street with their hands clasped together. 

Tears sprung into Eddie’s eyes and he shook them away. He’d never even - He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t even entertained the idea. It had seemed so … so unlikely. For other people, sure, but not him. 

And yet, when he thought about it, about maybe introducing Bill, or Mike, or Ben and Bev to a partner, to the person that was  _ his _ , who he cared about the most, how much better did it feel, to imagine another man standing next to him?

Someone tall, maybe, with broad shoulders and heavy stubble.

_ Holy fuck. _

By the time the dirt road of the quarry came into sight, Eddie was feeling a little better. Or, rather, he was feeling very much like this wasn’t happening to him. He was just an observer. Sure, he could feel the stones under his feet and the cool night air beating against his clothes. He could see the moonlight twinkling off the lake surface all those metres below. He could hear the nighttime chorus of the birds in the trees surrounding him. What was that, a nightingale, or a mockingbird? Probably the latter; an imposter in the skies above.

Eddie could feel and see and hear all of this, but the panic had ebbed away. He clambered over the safety barrier at the top of the highpoint, heedless of its warnings.

He’d dreamed of this place, hadn’t he? When he was dead. 

There had been a few times where he and Richie had come down here alone, just the two of them. Eddie had always treasured those days, even back then, aware that getting Richie all to himself was a blessing. Eddie had always liked watching Richie get undressed - not in a sexual way, though, not at all. It had just always made him smile. Richie Tozier, motormouth and human hurricane, taking such great care to fold his clothes up neatly at the side of the lake, tucking his watch deliberately into his shoe. 

“It’s stopped working,” he’d said to Eddie once, when he’d inevitably caught him staring. “I haven’t told my mom yet. It’s never the right time.”

Eddie had laughed. Eddie always laughed, even if he scowled at first. That’s what Richie did; made Eddie feel happy and safe and warm. 

He’d wanted to be with Richie all the time, had made excuses to get close to him, had yelled and jeered and pushed; closer, closer,  _ closer _ . 

Back in Pennywise’s lair, when Richie had been in the deadlights, hovering lifeless and pale and bleeding, Eddie hadn’t hesitated. 

Because life without Richie was so utterly awful.

Because Richie was someone that Eddie would always follow.

_ Because he loved him. _

That’s what he had forgotten. Maybe he’d always loved him, right from the start, with his generous laugh, his adventurer’s mind, and his stupid, open,  _ vulnerable _ heart.

Eddie shuffled forward, lifting his arms out to his sides and closing his eyes. If he thought about it hard enough, he could see it; Richie down in the water below, clothes folded in a pile by the rocks, waiting for him to jump.

All Eddie needed to do was make a leap of faith. 

♜

“I’m not sure how much more we can do,” Ben was saying somewhere near the door. Richie lingered in the hallway of his old house. 

The young Losers had left not long before, Eddie’s sudden declaration and subsequent upchucking serving as a suitably entertaining end to the evening, no doubt. Richie could hear his younger self walking about upstairs still, floorboards creaking gently. 

At least the kid was sorted, he thought, trying to be generous and ignore the sting it left in his chest. That was the main thing, wasn’t it? Richie’s life was already miserable, at least this would -

He closed his eyes.  _ What was even going to happen? The Goddamn turtle had been so Goddamn vague. _

“You’re puh-probably right. It just feels like we shuh-should feel different, you know?”

Richie sighed and entered the living room once more, grateful for the general lack of acknowledgment he received. Bill shuffled up on the two-seater to make extra room for him. 

“Some night, huh?” he groaned, sinking into the cushions and wincing as his bones cracked.

Before the others could respond, the front door thudded open and Eddie strode into the room. 

They all gaped. 

He was sopping wet, trailing water across the carpet. His shirt and jeans clung to his body where his chest was rising and falling at an alarming rate, and he was staring at Richie with wide eyes. 

_ Shouldn’t there be thunder and lightning to go along with this? _

Richie felt suddenly like he wanted to run for the hills.

“Hey, guys,” Eddie said, as if he wasn’t standing before them looking like something that had been dredged up from the deep. “Can you fuck off for a bit?”

The four of them didn’t even hesitate, leaping up from their seats and shuffling out of sight. Bev squeezed Richie’s arm as she passed, Mike sending him a look of such force that Richie was surprised he didn’t fall flat on his back. 

Right. He had to talk to Eddie about this, he had to be brave. 

Like Stan said. 

“Fancied a midnight swim?” Richie asked after the door swung shut once more. His voice was much less steady than he would have liked and his hand trembled as he waved it in Eddie’s general direction.

The other man’s hair was hanging across his forehead, dripping into his eyes. 

“I kept that model for years,” was Eddie’s response.  _ What the hell was he -  _ “Even after we moved, I had it. For years. I didn’t even - I mean, I forgot what it was. Forgot that it was from you, but I couldn’t get rid of it. For ages. I -” Eddie flexed his jaw and Richie watched the movement like prey might track a predator edging its way. “It was Myra who chucked it out, in the end. When we moved in together, she got rid of …” he trailed off. “It doesn’t matter. I just mean, it meant a lot to me.” Eddie’s eyes travelled across Richie’s face and he made an aborted step forward. “I’m sorry about - I’m sorry I ran away. I just freaked out a bit, I wasn’t -” He grimaced, running a hand across his jaw. “I didn’t expect that to happen,” he finished, his lips thin.

The whole speech had been so completely not what Richie had been expecting - he’d resigned himself fully to a gentle explanation about how Eddie didn’t feel the same, but  _ thank you very much _ \- that he wasn’t quite sure what to say. 

Wasn’t that wonderful, though? The idea that Eddie had kept something like that, something Richie had given him, for so long. 

_ Losers stick together. _

“You don’t have to apologise, Eds,” Richie eventually rasped. “You certainly didn’t have to jump into the fucking Kenduskeag.”

“The Penobscot, actually,” Eddie drawled, lips twitching when Richie let out a shocked laugh. He ducked his head. “It was the quarry.”

“The quarry,” Richie repeated. Christ, his hands were shaking even worse. He’d dreamed about the quarry, hadn’t he? The turtle had been there. He’d been so alone. “Obviously,” he said, slowly, pursing his lips. “Look, our lives are so different now.”

“Did you like me?” Eddie cut in, eyes bright. 

Richie’s mouth stuttered around the words for a second.  _ Never let them go.  _ “Yeah, I liked you. I fucking - I loved you, Eddie,” he said, voice wet and,  _ Jesus, get a hold of yourself, Richie. _ “My first love.”

“What about now?”

“It doesn’t -”

“Richie.”

Richie squirmed under Eddie’s gaze. “It’s different,” he said. “Just because mini you and mini me worked it out, it doesn’t mean I expect anything from you now. We’re different people, we have lives, things change.”

“But do you?”

_ What was going on here? Why was Eddie asking him this? _ Richie’s heart was beating double-time in his ribcage, so hard against his chest he was sure that Eddie could see it. 

_ Be true. Be brave. _ “Yeah, Eddie. I never stopped loving you,” he said, stilted and breathy.  _ Don’t cry, Richie. _ “I’m sorry. Look, I’m an adult, alright, I can handle - We can still be friends, right? I mean, fuck,” he rushed. “Of course we can, I don’t mean to be patronising, I know you wouldn’t -”

“What makes you think I want something different?” Eddie said, cutting him off, face impassive.

Richie furrowed his eyebrows. “Excuse me?” he said. Surely, he hadn’t heard that right. Immediately his legs began to tremble. Was this - Could this be -  _ Was Eddie - _

“What makes you think I don’t want the same as, you know, the younger versions of us?” Eddie repeated. His expression cracked a little, eyes showing off the beginnings of a smile. 

“Er,” Richie half laughed. “You ran out of here like fucking Pennywise was on your fucking tail?”

Eddie pouted. “Yeah, ‘spose that’s true. Sorry, again, about that,” he said, biting his lip. “I don’t think I do calm.” He sent Richie a real smile then, head cocked to one side as he said, “I don’t.”

Words no longer made any sense to Richie, his mind was just a blended mess of  _ ‘What the fuck?’  _ He hoped he didn’t sound too dumb when he said, simply, “What?” 

“Want something different,” Eddie clarified. Shrugged. Smiled at Richie. “If that changes what you want to say.”

Truth be told, it was all a bit much, standing in the middle of his childhood home, listening to Eddie say these words to him. Richie let out a manic bubble of laughter, pushing his glasses up his nose and dragging his hands through his hair. “It does a little, yeah,” he said, voice squeaky and definitely not calm. “You serious?”

“Yeah,” Eddie nodded. “Yeah, I mean, it’s terrifying and I only just, like, fucking realised that I’m fucking gay and then I jumped off a fucking cliff for some reason, but, yeah, dude. I’m serious.”

Ignoring the fact that his whole body was entering some kind of state of shock, Richie pulled a face. “Is ‘dude’ appropriate? In these circumstances?”

Eddie grinned. He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at Richie. “Would you prefer ‘bro’?”

Pretending to think about it for a second, Richie replied, “On balance, no. ‘Dude’ is fine.” He let out a long shuddering breath and, yeah, those were definitely tears in his eyes now, there was no stopping it. “Fuck,” he sniffed, shaking his head. “I - I carved our names onto the Kissing Bridge, you know?”

“Really?” Eddie said. He sounded genuinely surprised, frowning a little. “Before you realised I was alive, still?”

“Not  _ now _ , dipshit,” Richie retorted, because, yeah, that was not quite the romantic image he’d been hoping to conjure. “When I was thirteen.”

“When -” Eddie stopped short, gaze flicking between Richie’s eyes, as if he was trying to figure something out. After a moment, his shoulders sagged, arms coming down by his sides. “You’re a sap, you know that, right?” he said, softly.

Richie couldn’t disagree. “Yeah, I am.”

“Will you take me to see it?” Eddie said, again, as gently as Richie had ever heard him speak.

“Yeah.” 

“Are you going to kiss me soon?” Eddie asked.

_ Holy shit.  _ “Yeah,” Richie croaked, not taking his eyes off the other man. “It’s just that I can’t move.” 

Eddie smirked. “You need me to come over there?” 

_ You always were someone who needed a push. _

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

And just like that, Eddie did. He closed the distance between them in one single stride and stood, staring up at Richie with those big, brown eyes. 

Richie was hesitant in raising his hands to Eddie’s face, but he did it; his big, stupid hands trembling where they rested against Eddie’s cheeks. He leaned down and their mouths collided. Richie was surprised, somehow, at how warm Eddie’s lips were, how soft, and then, he really didn’t think much at all. Eddie’s fingers gripped his waist, slid up his back to his shoulders, and he was so _ close _ and Richie - Richie couldn’t believe he got to do this. 

The moment was broken, of course, by the Losers, who crept into the living room with the subtlety of a brick. 

“Hey,” Bev said, waving, far too loud and bright. “We just wanted to make sure nobody had murdered anyone, but I see we’re not needed.” She dissolved into giggles, clinging to Ben’s arm. 

“No murders here,  _ thank you _ ,” Richie grunted, letting his grip on Eddie loosen just a little. 

The other man hummed as the rest of the Lucky Seven smiled stupidly at them. “It was a close call, though,” he said before squeezing Richie’s arm and starting towards the door. “I’m going to grab a shower, just quick.”

“Yeah, buddy,” Ben snorted. “Why  _ are _ you all wet?”

And really, it was all too easy. Richie leaned close. “I have that effect,” he said, smugly.

“Oh, my God,” Eddie crowed, glaring at him. “I’ll take it back.”

“No, you won’t.”

Eddie didn’t respond, but headed upstairs, waving off the grinning congratulatory calls that followed him.

When Bev turned to Richie, eyes wide and smile even wider, and said, “I told you so,” Richie didn’t even bother to argue. 

Later, as Richie crossed the hallway from the bathroom, the house quiet once more after the Losers had had their fill of gentle teasing, Richie came face to face with his younger self. The boy climbed the stairs, two tall cups of water in his hands.

Richie wasn’t sure what made him say it, but the words were out of his mouth before he knew it. “Good luck, kiddo,” he said, quietly.

The teenager blinked at him for a second before nodding. Richie watched as he paused on the threshold of his room; a room that, in Richie’s universe, was just a year away from being packed up and forgotten for almost three decades.  _ God, please let it be different for him now _ . Young Richie turned, then, and shrugged a single shoulder, before he muttered, “Thanks. You know. For everything.”

Smiling, Richie narrowed his eyes and hummed. “That seems oddly self-serving.”

“A bit,” the kid smiled. “Still.” Another shrug.  _ Teenagers _ . “Goodnight,” he said, pushing his bedroom door open. 

Spotting a sliver of bed, young Eddie sound asleep, arm spilled over the side and dragging on the floor, Richie let out a soft breath. “‘Night,” he said, watching still as his seventeen-year-old self shut the door behind him. 

_ You’ll be okay, Richie. _

Slipping under the duvet in his parents’ room, Richie laid quietly, letting the strange tingling feeling in his chest work its way through his body. 

“I love you,” he declared into the air, feeling an odd sense of finality come over him. 

From where he was already buried beneath the sheets, hair blow-dried to within an inch of its life - “I can’t go to sleep with wet hair, Richie, do you want me to get an infection?” Richie couldn’t fucking wait to spend the rest of his life listening to those grumbles - Eddie looked at him, eyes already half-closed. 

“I love you, too,” he said.

Eddie Kaspbrak loved him. Eddie Kaspbrak was alive and loved him. Eddie Kaspbrak was alive and loved him and Richie was never going to let him go. 

“Do you feel that?” Richie said, not sure himself what he was referring to. Outside, the headlights of a car flashed through the window. A loud, cut off laugh travelled through the floor; Bill, downstairs tipsy from cheap scotch. The light in the family bathroom clicked off, Ben’s soft footfalls vanishing into silence.

“What?” Eddie asked. 

“I feel something, I don’t know.”

A moment passed. Eddie shifted closer, the fabric of his sleep shirt soft against Richie’s arm. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I think I know what you mean.” 

Drawing him closer, Richie kissed him again, warm and soft and sleepy, and when Eddie snaked an arm around his shoulder, pulling him down closer, Richie knew that he’d never want to fall asleep any other way. 

When he pulled away, Eddie’s breath was warm on his skin and he sunk down into the pillow next to him. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Eddie murmured, his hand still resting against Richie’s wrist, heavy and  _ home _ . 

“Yeah,” Richie said into the dark. “Wherever we are then.”

And when Richie closed his eyes, in the blackness, he thought he might have seen the swish of a flipper, the size of an ancient valley, vanishing into nothing.


	5. From a Distance

_ “It’s better to burn out, than it is to rust _

_ The king is gone, but he’s not forgotten.” _

\- Neil Young,

‘My My, Hey, Hey (Out of the Blue)’

* * *

_ “No good friends, no bad friends; _

_ only people you want, need to be with.  _

_ People who build their houses in your heart.” _

\- Stephen King,

‘IT’

* * *

♘

Stanley Uris hated running late, even if the only people waiting for him were the other Losers, who wouldn’t care one jot. Still, it was rare enough that they got together, all of them at once; Stan felt that he was entitled to it as he accelerated through the amber traffic light, Patty quirking her eyebrow at him, a wordless smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

She knew just how much he cared about the other Losers, no matter how much he claimed they frustrated him. He wanted to spend as much time with them as possible.

Besides, it was his birthday party, after all. It’s not every day you turned forty. 

In the back of the car Maddie and Nathan were plugged into their phones, the tinny beats of music facing each other in a muted battle. Abigail, their youngest, was sound asleep in her car seat, exhausted from the night before, having been far too excited to settle down to bed. 

“There’ll be hell to pay when she wakes up to find she’s missed out,” Patty said, unable to keep the fondness from her words. 

Stan chuckled. “You watch, she’ll be wide awake as soon as we pull into Ben and Bev’s driveway.”

He wasn’t far off. The young girl blinked her eyes open the moment after Stan knocked on the door, the sun beating down on the bright flowers spilling over the pots artfully placed on the porch.

It wasn’t Ben or Bev who answered the door, however, but Bill, glasses perched on the tip of his nose and his hair standing on end - that tended to be the way of it whenever Stan video-called him now, his young son having an ‘eye for style’, as Audra claimed. Stan thought that perhaps the kid had more of an eye for pressing his father’s buttons, but he kept that to himself. 

He set Abigail down and stepped forward, ready to embrace his old friend, when Bill sighed. “Oh, thank fuck. Stan’s here, guys!” he called over his shoulder into the house, to an answering chorus of indecipherable cheers. “Why have you not been responding to the fucking chat?” he snapped, eyes back on Stan. Stan dropped his outstretched arms. “We thought you were dead in a ditch.” Bill’s scowl faded for a second and he smiled warmly at the others. “Hi, Patty, hi kids. Ethan’s out back with the others.”

“Sorry, it’s been hectic the past few days,” Stan replied, a little on edge. Big Bill still managed to summon an oddly parently air about him when he wanted to. “And do you have to swear in front of the kids?”

“Yes. It’s code fucking red, Stanley.” Stan gawped. Oh, he thought. Oh,  _ I see. _ Bill grunted, cocking his head. “Come on.”

Inside, as always when all the Losers and their families got together, it was manic. Though Ben and Bev’s house was large, with two teens and a pre-teen in residence, the space was always full of action whenever Stan visited. He waved goodbye to Patty, who went off with Abigail in tow and vague murmurings of hunting down Audra and Joy. The twins had already vanished, no doubt seeking out the other kids.

The sight that welcomed Stan in the kitchen was not quite what he had been expecting. From Bill’s tone he’d anticipated some disaster; a fire, or a trip to the ER on the horizon. At the very least there should have been a burnt cake, or something. Instead, he got the Losers, minus Richie, turning to him with pleasant smiles.

“Stan, my man!” Mike rushed to him without a second’s hesitation. He gripped both of Stan’s arms, eyes wide, grin dazzling. “Do you remember? I wonder if you will.” His gaze flicked to the others before he continued, “Time travel, yeah? We’re all - Well,  _ most of us _ are back.”

“Time travel,” Stan said. As the words dropped from his lips, though, dry and flat, something flickered in his memory; walking into a diner to find six adult versions of his friends staring back at him, ‘You called him Dino,’ ‘You’re dead. Both of you, you’re dead,’ diving beneath Neibolt and dragging Big Bill out, gasping and dripping.  _ Be true. Be brave. Stand. _ Stan sucked in a breath, hand coming up to his forehead. He hadn’t thought about that for - for thirty years. “Oh.  _ Shit _ . Is that now?” he breathed. 

“Yeah,” Mike nodded, eyes twinkling.

From over his shoulder Ben clapped Eddie’s back where the other man was hunched over the kitchen island. “I told you he’d remember.”

“But, that’s -” Stan looked between them, from Mike and Ben’s grinning faces, Bill’s triumphant stance, to Bev’s bright and joyful glow. Then, to Eddie, who looked almost like he’d been punched in the stomach, his head in his hands. “This is good, right? Why’s Eddie - Eddie, why’d you look like that?” Stan had to bite down on a laugh.  _ Why was there always one of them causing a drama? _ “What’s the problem?”

When Eddie raised his head Stan saw the darkened bags beneath his eyes. “The problem,  _ Stanley _ ,” Eddie gritted out. “Is that I’m freaking out.”

Leaning forward on her arms, Bev explained, “Eddie was the first to remember everything, or, no, the first to come back to his body?” she frowned and shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s weird.”

“He may have panicked a little,” Ben added, with a sympathetic grimace, ruffling Eddie’s hair gently.

Through the open french doors leading from the breakfast nook out into the backyard, the delighted squealing of several young children bounced around the tiled room. Really, Stan couldn’t get too worked up about it all. This proved that it worked, didn’t it? That they’d done it right, they’d upheld the oath and lived the best lives they could. They’d beaten IT and won and got their reward.

“I didn’t want to freak anyone  _ else _ out,” Eddie groaned, still. “So I’ve been lying all week -”

“Well, hey, come on,” Ben interrupted. “Bev and Bill and I remembered like, the next day.”

“Whatever.” Eddie turned back to Stan, brow furrowed. “I’ve been lying to Richie all week and he should remember it all today, I think, if it’s going in the order we left Derry, and I  _ hate _ lying to him and - It’s not funny, Stan!”

Abruptly, Stan wiped the smile from his face, ignoring the way Bill pivoted on the spot, as if Stan couldn’t see the way his shoulders were shaking.

“It is a  _ little _ funny,” Stan tried. 

“What is?”

Richie entered the kitchen then, his daughter clinging to his back, her small hands clasped around his neck. Richie didn’t seem to mind, but then it was well known that he was the softest parent amongst them; a fact that was often abused by all.

“SNL, last week,” Stan replied, not willing to miss a beat. “So much better since you left, you know? Might start watching it now.”

Richie grinned. “That’s rude,” he said, turning his head just a little. “Bean, did you hear that? Hasn’t even said hello yet.”

“Beep-beep, Uncle Stan,” Cece nodded, ever loyal. 

The Losers all chuckled as Stan gave Richie a short hug, sticking his tongue out at Cece as their faces drew closer.

“Yeah,” Richie grinned, pulling away. “Beep-beep.” He turned his attention to Mike. “So, there’s a debate going on next door about what the most westerly point is, like, in the world,” he said. “What’s it called, that little island thing, you know, that kind of ...” He waved his hand in front of him, carving out a small bump in the air.

“Attu Island,” Mike replied, easily.

Richie snapped his fingers. “That’s what - Patty!” He turned on his heel, heading back out into the hall, Cece waving goodbye. She was wearing glittery fairy wings. Stan bit his lip. “We were right!”

The Losers stared at each other for a moment before Stan sighed. “Might as well just let him be for a few more hours,” he said. “It’s not like it’s going to make a difference.” He frowned. “Weird that we all just  _ forgot  _ that this was going to happen.”

And it was. It wasn’t like the clown. That had been much quicker, much more complete, until, of course, they remembered it all at once. This, though, had been like … like the name of his elementary school teacher, or something. It was available to him if he thought about it, he just never  _ did _ . 

“I didn’t forget,” Bill said, chewing on his bottom lip as he thought. “I mean, I guess I just didn’t think about it enough to keep track of the dates.” He looked over at the rest, nodding along with his words.

“Feels like something we  _ would _ have thought about more, though,” Bev suggested.

“Turtle shit,” Eddie muttered.

Mike nodded. “Turtle shit,” he echoed.

It must be worse for them, Stan thought, distantly. He was just recalling his own past, but the others, they had other lives, right? Was that how it worked? A completely different existence to amalgamate into their own. “What’s it like?” he asked, voice croaking a little.

There was silence for a little while, music starting from somewhere else in the house. It echoed through the walls, almost like a heartbeat; like the house itself was a living, breathing thing. Stan waited. 

“Like - Like, I dunno, it’s weird,” Bev eventually settled on. She was frowning, eyes narrowed at a point above all their heads, her hair coming down in curls around her shoulders. “When it first all came back … It was like I’d landed in my body again, and this movie of my life was poured into my head, you know?” She dropped her gaze to Stan and the others. Next to her, Eddie nodded. “Leaving Derry, getting married, the kids, everything … everything  _ good _ . The longer it goes on, though, the more it feels the other way around. Like, this has always been my life, and the other version - the version with Tom and  _ IT _ and -” She licked her lips, laughing to herself a little. “ _ That _ feels like a movie I watched once.”

Stan wasn’t entirely sure he understood. Perhaps he never would; he wasn’t part of that story. What had his other life been like? He’d wondered more about that when he was younger. Now, though, it just hadn’t felt important.

“I don’t think we’ll forget it,” Bill was saying. “Not completely, but -”

“It’s getting further away,” Mike said.

The quiet swelled up again, the noises of the house beating once more. “Weird,” Stan said on a breath, his shoulders slumping. 

Eddie barked out a laugh, lines forming at the corners of his eyes. “Thank you, Stan, for that adept summary.”

“You’re welcome,” Stan sniffed. Then he huffed, “Can we start celebrating my birthday now?”

“ _ Fine _ ,” Eddie rolled his eyes dramatically. He pointed at Stan, focused. “I had no control over your present, by the way, it’s all Richie.” He raised his palms in the air, washing away any responsibility. “I don’t want to be associated with it.”

Stan didn’t want to ask. “I will brace myself accordingly,” he said, with the air of the long-suffering.

With a flick of the tongue, Eddie added, “Maybe make sure the kids aren’t around.”

“Wonderful.”

They weren’t waiting long. Thankfully Audra, Patty and Joy were used to the mayhem of a Losers gathering and tended to leave them to it, or they might have had a lot more explaining to do. As it was, it happened as Richie shuffled back into the living room, a slice of Stan’s birthday cake balancing on a plate in his hands, singing along to Billy Joel playing quietly from the radio in the kitchen.

“Princess Grace, ‘Peyton Place’, trouble in the Suez! Oh -  _ Oh, fuck _ ,” Richie spluttered out, stumbling as he entered the room. “Fucking,  _ shit. _ ” It was a bizarre sight. If Stan hadn’t known better, he might have thought Richie was suffering a stroke or something. An aneurysm. His knees seemed to give away beneath him, his hands coming up to clasp his head, cake dropping onto the floor. Knelt in the middle of the room, the Losers gathered around him in a rush as he took several heaving breaths. Geez, Stan thought. It really was intense. “Eddie,” Richie gasped, his arm coming out to reach in front of him, flailing almost blindly. “ _ Eddie _ , where - Eds -”

“Hey, alright,” Eddie rushed, coming up to his side and taking Richie’s hand in his own as the other man stared at him like water to the parched. “I’m right here, it’s all fine. You’re just -”

“Richie, calm the fuck down,” Stan snapped, kneeling in front of him. The other man’s skin had turned a horrid shade of grey and, if Stan was completely honest, it was freaking him out. He needed Richie to snap out of it. “Remember your training.”

Richie winced. “Shut up, Stan,” he groaned. Then, like a shot, his eyes snapped up to focus on Stan, wide and shaking. “Holy shit,” Richie croaked. “You’re alive.”

_ Right, because he hadn’t been, had he? _

Stan cast a quick glance at the others, Bev’s red eyes and Bill’s fixed jaw, and sent Richie a bashful shrug. “It’s much harder to kill yourself with six absolute weirdos calling you every five minutes,” he admitted.

Snivelling just a little, Richie let out a wet, “Jesus,” his knuckles white where they gripped Eddie’s hand. 

“Also,” Stan cocked his head. “No, you know, second coming of Pennywise, so …”

He pulled an expression, one that he had intended to say, ‘No need to worry’. He thought he’d probably failed on that front, however, when Richie just groaned again and leaned his head forward to rest against Stan’s shoulder. 

“Beep-beep, Stan,” Richie muttered. 

Stan laughed. Yeah, that one was probably fair.

♜

_ Holy fuck. Holy! Fuck! Holy  _ fucking _ fuck! _

Richie couldn’t get his mind to stop spinning, or his heart to slow down, or even the nerves beneath his skin to stop tingling. 

It was the weirdest fucking thing.

He knew, objectively, that he was in Ben and Bev’s house, he’d been there before, but,  _ when? _ Flashes kept popping up, intermingling with the rushed reassurances of everyone around him. 

Nineteen years old and working all the shifts God gave him in the run up to Thanksgiving, only just able to buy a last-minute ticket to fly out to New York and spend it with Eddie and Stan.

Twenty-two years old, in his ill-fitting suit, walking Bev down the aisle as Ben struggled to hold it together at the altar, the other Losers grinning wide and proud at his side.

Twenty-six years old and lost in LA, cackling as Bill’s pout became more and more pronounced, staring at an unfolded map almost as tall as him, and only calling Eddie to come get them when the sun began to set. 

Twenty-eight years old, shaking and sweating, walking to Rockefeller Plaza and almost hurling on the spot when the bright, smiling assistant called his name.

Thirty years old and attempting to replace the taps in their first proper house himself, struggling to turn the stopcock as he was doused with water, Eddie behind him with tears of mirth running down his cheeks.

Thirty-three years old, huddling under the sheets with Eddie, talking in hushed whispers about how, maybe they were ready? They would be good parents, right? Maybe it was time?

Thirty-nine years old and crying like a baby, Mike’s arms around him, Eddie curled into his chest, as the news reporter declared, “As of today, same-sex marriage is a legal right in this country.”

_ Holy fucking shit. _

There was no way he wasn’t going to throw up.

Trying to ground himself, he focused on Eddie’s hand in his own, the voices around him, Stan’s face, just in front of his. “Did you quote ‘Star Wars’ at me?” he said, voice wavering ridiculously. “You always said it was dumb.”

Stan rolled his eyes.  _ Stan.  _ All grown up, here with them. “It is quite impossible,” he said, smile peaking through his words. “To live a lifetime with you, Richie, and not pick up a few phrases.”

_ A lifetime. _

“Dude,” Richie whimpered. “You’re making me fucking cry.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“Eddie,” he called out. His vision was too blurred to be able to see him properly, but he knew he was there.

“Yeah?” Eddie replied.

“It’s you, right?” Richie asked in a whisper. “You remember?” 

Because, what if it was just him? What if it hadn’t worked for the others? What if they were sent back to the other place, stuck in the lives that none of them deserved?

“Yeah,” Eddie said, breathless. Richie ducked his head. “We all do. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“And … this is real, right? This isn’t, I don’t know, the deadlights, or something?”

Eddie smiled at him then, wide enough that Richie couldn’t possibly mistake it. “I don’t think so.”

Around them, the others closed in, and Richie was engulfed in a ball of warm arms and bodies and hiccoughing laughter. 

“We all look so much better,” he cried out, no idea at all if it was true, but it  _ felt _ true. “What the fuck!”

He could hear Bill’s bright laugh, Bev’s sweet chuckle, could feel the rest of them smiling, knew it to be real. There was no way Pennywise could fake this feeling.

“I’ve always told you,” Eddie teased, loud in his ear. “I’m a positive fucking influence, aren’t I?”

Richie didn’t know how long they stayed like that, curled around each other. Dimly, Richie recalled the last time they had held each other like this, in the quarry, the spaces where Eddie and Stan should have been cold and pronounced. He found, though, that it didn’t hurt to think about. It had never happened, had it? Not anymore? They were together. They always would be.

“Sorry,” a quiet voice broke the warm silence. Richie looked through the gap between Bill and Mike’s arms and saw …

Another flash of memories poured through his mind. 

Mike grinning like a schoolboy, his hand on her shoulder. “Guys,” he’d said. “This is Joy.” 

_ Joy. _ Mike’s Joy. 

Richie smiled.

“No, it’s okay,” he heard Mike say, chest rumbling somewhere near him.

“Just our routine Losers crying session,” Ben grinned at her. God, they must all look so absurd, smiling away like idiots at absolutely nothing.

Joy nodded, nose crinkled. Right. That’s what Joy did, Richie had always thought it was adorable, hadn’t he? Her crinkled nose when she smiled. “Someone wants his daddy,” she said, raising her eyebrows. 

For a second, Richie was baffled, before his three-year-old poked his head around the door frame.

“Hey, Smudge,” Richie found himself saying, breaking away and reaching out towards the boy.

Oh, yeah, he was definitely going to hurl.  _ Not all over Miles, Richie. Eddie would flip.  _

“Daddy, look at my turtle!” Miles cried, delighted as he rushed into his father’s waiting arms. He held up a small, almost furry little object, googly eyes spinning madly. His turtle, Richie supposed. It was horrifically ugly. Richie couldn’t have been more proud.

And, really, who could blame him for the fresh tears spilling from his eyes? “Oh, wow,” he cooed, trying not to sob too openly. “We’ll have to get a house for it back home. What do turtle’s eat, do you know?”

“It’s not  _ real _ , daddy!”

“Are you sure?”

“Uhuh!”

“But he’s got a shell and everything,” he teased. He could tease Miles like this and the boy would love it. Cece, though, she would just tilt her head at him, narrow her eyes and consider everything he said, deciding whether she thought it was the truth or not. His kids. His and Eddie’s kids.

Richie’s lips trembled and a small noise escaped him. 

Eddie, who’d been lingering at his side, rubbed at his back as Miles turned to him. “Dad!” the boy whined. “I made it!”

Eddie crouched down. “It’s amazing, Milo,” he said, making sure to keep his hand firm on Richie’s shoulder. Richie thought it might be the only thing keeping him from floating to the ceiling. Christ, even Eddie’s voice as he spoke to their son was just - Richie could not handle this shit. “Can you make me a colourful one?”

Miles gazed down at his pipe-cleaner creation for a second - God, he was the spitting image of Eddie, it was insane - before looking up at Eddie again with a smile that took up his whole face. “Yeah!” he said. “A yellow one! A banana one! Abi- _ gail! _ ”

He was already scurrying out of the room, giggles flowing from him like ribbons. In the doorway Joy narrowed her eyes at the pile of them, still clutching at each other. “We’re all in the kitchen,” she said, slowly. “If you need us.” She looked very much like she sincerely hoped nobody would need them.

“Thanks, honey,” Mike said. “We’ll be alright.” His eyes were a little glassy, a little  _ too  _ wide and, well,  _ sure _ , he’d only have got back yesterday, right? Or,  _ remembered _ yesterday - that was going to take some getting his head around - he was probably getting used to it all, still. 

Richie snapped his head towards Eddie. “Is this why you were a complete mess all last weekend?” he asked, and  _ weird _ that he could remember that, right? Or, maybe not.

Eddie snorted. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Honestly, couldn’t do anything with him,” Richie said to the others. “He was use -” His voice broke and he forced down a sob. Eddie held his hand tightly and he felt several sets of fingers clasp his shoulders. “It worked. I can’t believe it.” He let out a wet laugh, squinting over at Stan.  _ “Shit. _ Sorry, Stan. It’s your party. We’re supposed to be celebrating.”

Bev sighed, then, meeting Stan’s eyes like it was natural, like it was something they just  _ did. _ “I think he’s used to it by now,” she said, softly. “Right, Stan?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Stan agreed, before he raised a warning finger at Richie, expression sincere. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“You want a blood pact, on that?” Richie managed to get out, holding out his right hand.

Stan glared at him. “Fuck off, Trashmouth.”

~

Hours later, back at their own house (Their house!  _ Their’s! _ With Eddie, his husband! And their kids!) Richie was feeling a little more relaxed. Sort of.  _ Mostly.  _ He’d found his iPad had all the same playlists on as before, which, for some odd reason, sent an odd pang through his chest. As if to say, sure, your other life was awful, but you were still  _ you.  _ It was all you. You and the Losers and Eddie in all possible universes. 

It played now, as Richie sat against the pillows in his and Eddie’s bedroom. 

_ ‘But time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m getting older, too.’ _

“Is that coffee, Eds?” he asked, upon hearing the floorboard outside their door creak. You had to watch out for that one. “You  _ are _ different,” he grinned, biting at his bottom lip. “I’m not sure I like it, the whole health hyper fixation was what really got me going, you know.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie dismissed, settling down next to him. “And it’s tea. Decaf. Helps me sleep.”

“You’re so old.”

“Younger than you,” he replied, taking a long sip. “I’m still in my thirties.”

“A  _ baby.” _

His phone buzzed on the nightstand, another notification from the Losers Group chat filling the screen. Something else Richie was glad hadn’t changed; that the others had allowed him to choose their names. 

**The Losers Club**

**Señor Trashmouth**

Hey @Little Big B remember how every single one of your books had sucky endings? Shame that’s the same in all of the macroverse

9:16 pm

**Ringwald**

i told him! i told him when i proofread his first manuscript! i tried!!

9:22 pm

**Times Man of the Year**

I preferred the new ending to ‘The Black Rapids’! The whole family dying was too much.

9:24 pm

**Little Big B**

I just cant believe that this is the one thing that I have to live with wherever I go …

9:39 pm

**Little Big B**

Having just the most horrible friends imaginable

9:39 pm

**Little Big B**

Not you ben ... I’ve always preferred you

9:40 pm

**Doctor K**

just write better books. it’s not hard.

9:53 pm

**Ringwald**

it’s not hard, Bill!!

9:59 pm

**Bird Brain**

Bill, it’s not hard.

10:04 pm

**Learning with Mike**

Like it’s even hard, Bill.

10:15 pm

**Learning with Mike**

Just got back home. Saw this guy waiting under the front porch. 

[attached image] 

10:20 pm

**Learning with Mike**

Think I’ll keep him. Ideas on names?

10:22 pm

**Times Man of the Year**

Sir Shells

10:29 pm

**Señor Trashmouth**

Eddie

10:30 pm

**Doctor K**

fuck off

10:32 pm

**Little Big B**

@Doctor K Thats a terrible name for a turtle

10:34 pm

**Bird Brain**

Sir Shells.

10:34 pm

**Learning with Mike**

@Bird Brain Sounds great.

10:40 pm

**Times Man of the Year**

You’re bullies, all of you.

10:53 pm

**Times Man of the Year**

@Ringwald I can see you laughing!

10:53 pm

Richie grinned down at his phone, setting it back down and basking in the warm feeling spreading from his chest into his limbs.

“Got to the good stuff yet?” Eddie asked and Richie turned to see the other man regarding him with an unabashedly fond expression.

“It’s all good,” he replied, and returned his attention to the photo album, resting heavy on his lap. Richie hadn’t been able to help pulling it out after they put the kids to bed (Their kids!), it was just - It was - It was his  _ life. _ It was like he was at a buffet, all you could eat, and he didn’t know what to start with. There’d been pictures of them back in Derry, with his parents at graduation, of Richie at his old DJing booth, of Eddie grinning at the camera, posed in front of the first newly restored car in his workshop, of their wedding. Pages of the Losers. Hundreds of the kids. 

Richie couldn’t stop. 

“I can’t believe -” He bit his lip, shaking his head. “Like, shit, Eds, two weeks ago I didn’t have a clue who you were. I mean, hell, I didn’t know who  _ I  _ was. And then you were dead, and - and -”

“I know,” Eddie replied, shifting closer to him and leaning his head against Richie’s shoulder. 

“I hope this is real,” Richie muttered, eyeing the picture laid out in front of him (Richie holding Ben and Bev’s eldest as a baby, awkward and terrified).

“It is real, Richie. I promise,” Eddie said, slow and sleepy. “We did what the turtle wanted.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah?” Richie turned to look at the other man, his cheek pressing into Eddie’s hair.

“The kids love you,” Eddie continued. “The Losers love you.”

“Yeah,” Richie replied. He felt tired, then; exhausted and content in a way that was simultaneously familiar and utterly alien. “We got to keep them,” he said. He pressed his lips to Eddie’s forehead. “I love you, too.”

“I know.”

He hummed, turning the page of the photo album with a creak. Immediately, he barked out a surprised huff. “Fucking - Look at this one.”

Eddie peered over. It was a group shot, overexposed like every photo taken in the nineties. The teenage Losers all crowded onto the couch in, maybe,  _ Stan’s _ old house? Behind the couch, though, Richie, Bill, Bev, Ben, Mike and Eddie - the adult Losers - smiled at the camera, too. 

Pulling it out from the film sleeve, Richie flipped the picture around. On the back, in his old messy scrawl, were the words,  _ ‘The Losers and their Community Outreach Team - July 1993’. _

“Oh, that’s so weird,” he croaked. In the picture, his hair had been longer than it was now. He’d already gotten used to it that way. 

Eddie pushed himself further upright. “Man, I mean, I remember myself. Isn’t that mad? This was the day I left my mom’s, I think, right?”

“Yeah. Fuck.” Richie reached for his phone again. “I’ve got to send this to everyone.”

He paused when Eddie rested his hand across his forearm, eyes wide. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Come on,  _ bed.” _

Richie relented, placing the album on the floor beside the bed and shutting off his speakers. “You’re insatiable,” he muttered, dragging Eddie closer to him in the dark.

“Shut  _ up, _ Richie,” Eddie replied, but Richie knew he was smiling regardless. 

Eddie always smiled in the end.

And when Richie closed his eyes, he dreamed of the water below him and the stars above, and he wasn’t scared; there was no reason to be scared. He wouldn’t be rejected, or abandoned, or forgotten.

See, the thing about being a Loser was, you were never really alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and/or listening to my little foray into Derry - I hope it kept you entertained. Found family is the biggest, best trope to ever exist, you will never change my mind. 
> 
> Also, I was having flashbacks to Harry Potter’s ‘Nineteen Years Later’ while trying to come up with names for the kids in this last part. So, just so you know, I really _tried_ to make it all sound plausible!
> 
> I would love to hear what you thought about it all, so please <3 leave a comment and let me know.
> 
> [tumblr masterpost](https://missberrycake.tumblr.com/post/633167580896624640/the-king-is-gone-by-missberrycake-chapter-1)


End file.
